


run until you feel your lungs bleeding

by nosecoffee



Category: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (TV 2016)
Genre: Adventure, Angst, Attempted Assault, Attempted Sexual Assault, Blatant Hurt, Breaking and Entering, F/F, F/M, Getting Together, Humour, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mild Smut, Morally Grey Characters, Murder, PTSD, Police procedures, Roadtrips, Robbery, Romance, Running Away, Sharing a Bed, This is pretty dark actually, Vague PTSD, Various Cameos - Freeform, alternating pov, ambiguous ending, bad intentions, be gay do crimes, dark humour, end of the fucking world au, guess which parts I cared about the least, hey take care of yourselves, making assumptions, the usual, unreliable narrators
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-23
Updated: 2018-07-23
Packaged: 2019-06-14 12:26:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 40,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15388734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nosecoffee/pseuds/nosecoffee
Summary: He stumbles further, grasping at the ragged remains of his throat, more blood splattering over his hand and onto the floor. Mr Priest slips. Mr Priest falls. And goes still.The blood does not stop coming out of his throat. It spreads out below his head like a repulsive, brackish halo. Dirk does not stop screaming.Bart continues to stare at the body. Then she falls to her knees and vomits on the floorboards.(Or an End of the FXXXing World AU)





	run until you feel your lungs bleeding

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Run" by Hozier
> 
> Big thanks to my beta (@stupidflightybullshirt) and my artist (@pixel-is) who put up with me and delivered great work. Please go check out @pixel-is's drawings for [my fic](https://pixel-is.tumblr.com/post/176157233008/art-for-nose-coffee-dghdabigbang-end-of-the). It's really good.

She is running. There is no way she can get away. She's risked everything, she's _ruined_ everything. They're not going to have a choice.

She is not going to get away. Her breath wheezes out of her in a way that is too uncomfortable, in a way that makes her body beg for rest. It feels like sandpaper, and sounds like nails on a chalkboard.

She will not get away. It will have all been for nothing.

She can't run fast enough.

_BAM_

The sound of it echoes around her. It catches her in the small of her back. She trips. She falls. The sky is grey.

* * *

**Part One: Fight**

* * *

 

"Doesn't it seem weird to you that three weirdass kids go missing at the same time and suddenly crime skyrockets?" Tina asks, crouching over the body of Osmund Priest, drained of all blood, yet with no blood to be found. She sips at the coffee in her still-warm to-go cup and tries not to look too hard at the grizzly rip along their most recent murder victim’s throat.  
  
Farah looks up from her notepad. “Is this about that gas station robbery?” She asks. They got the call this morning, right before getting the call about the body. A group of kids tried to steal a full tank of gas, and once foiled, assaulted the gas station owner and robbed her store.

“Yeah. I mean, we get a call about two kids just down the coast robbing some poor woman?” Tina replies, taking another sip of coffee. “And apparently her son is also missing. And the son of the adjacent gas station owner. And then, suddenly, there’s a body. Like, a _dead_ body.”

“That's confusing.” Farah murmurs, smiling, a little, at Tina.

“It is. And all this fingerprint business is getting the best of me.” Tina says, rubbing her face. “Like, I mean, doesn't it seem crazy that a kid could kill someone?”

Farah frowns down at the body. "What? You think Todd Brotzman had _anything_ to do with this?" She replies, and gestures with her pen.  
  
Tina frowns, too, and replaces the sheet forensics placed over Mr Priest’s body. "No, definitely not. With his track record? No.” She doesn’t say that she has no doubt he has a lot to do with this. She doesn’t say that she suspects things went sideways very quickly, and Todd Brotzman could do nothing but let them happen. “I'm talking about Bartine Curlish and Svlad Cjelli."  
  
"You think some _kids_ did this?" Is Farah's incredulous response. Because, yeah, all of them are seventeen. Why would three seventeen year-olds want to kill someone? “Tina, come on. They practically can't even be placed at the scene.”

“Farah, listen, the cleaner is hiding something, and you know it.” She says in a hushed voice. That was the first thing she did, upon arriving here, today. She interrogated the cleaner, and he was so obviously hiding something, it was honestly painful. Farah gets ushered from the room, and Tina opens a bedside table drawer, finding the remainder of a pack of sticky notes. It looks like someone wrote something in sharpie on the last sticky note, and Tina can vaguely make out what it says.

"Uh, T, you'll wanna see this." Farah calls, from across the room, by the door. She's holding an evidence bag, with a wallet in it.

Ken Adams’s wallet, under the couch, places him at the scene, apparently.

“Fuck,” Tina says. One more fucking kid who could've slit Osmund Priest’s throat.

~

Bart can't help staring across the library, rubber end of her pencil in her mouth, at Ken Adams. He's listening to music through big, clunky headphones and occasionally bopping to the obviously upbeat songs coming out of his phone as he types on his computer.  
  
She's not too sure herself, can't really be bothered to read up on the subject all that much, but she thinks she's a psychopath. It's something about ending another person's life that really gets her..  
  
When she was six, she waved at a man across the street, and when he crossed to say hello, he was immediately hit by a car and killed on impact. Ever since then, it's been the only thing she can think about. Bart knows that usually people who kill other people pick their targets carefully, usually follow a pattern of similarities or something, but Bart has no way of knowing why, exactly, she wants to kill Ken Adams.

It's not really just that. She wants to kill _someone_ , and _Ken_ is just in her line of sight.

He sees her staring. He stares back, unblinking, looking vaguely worried. Bart pulls her crushed sandwich out of her backpack, never looking away from Ken Adams, and begins to eat it. He swallows, visibly, and finally looks away.  
  
"You aren’t supposed to eat in the library." Says a voice suddenly, and Svlad Cjelli sits himself down across from her.  
  
Bart scowls at him. "I do what I want." She replies, ever so eloquently. "Fuck off."  
  
Instead of leaving - like she _asked_ \- he simply smiles. "Why are you looking at Ken Adams like that? Do you fancy him or something?" Before she can tell him to fuck off, again, he brightens, somehow. "Ooh, are you two doing an assignment where you have to sit across rooms from each other? Is it for science? Seems a _little_ weird, but I wouldn't put it past any of the science teachers."  
  
"Who I stare at across libraries has nothin' to do wit’ you, and you should mind your own business." She says, and takes another bite of her sandwich.  
  
"Why are you staring at him?" Svlad asks, and Bart groans in irritation through her sandwich.  
  
"Why d'ya wanna know?" She replies, unable to not engage in the conversation. Maybe she could end it abruptly and walk away, but knowing Svlad, he'd probably follow her.  
  
"I'm going to be a detective, one day, and I suppose I should get in early with practice interrogation." He replies, cheerfully.  
  
"Tha's so dumb." Bart informs him.  
  
"Maybe, if that's not what you what to do, later in life." He replies, shrugging, and smiling, cheerfully. "What do you want to do?"  
  
"Assassinate people." Bart grunts.  
  
"That's rather dark." Svlad comments, absentmindedly. "Are you sure you wouldn't prefer something less violent?"  
  
"I like violence." She grins, and he looks a bit unnerved for a second.  
  
"Alright, each to their own." There's a long pause, and Bart thinks maybe Svlad's finally decided to shut up. " _Do_ you fancy him?"  
  
" _No_ !" She cries, and wrinkles her nose at him. A few people around them jump at her loud outburst and glare. Bart ignores them. "Why would I like 'im?"  
  
"'Cause you're staring at him." Svlad says, as if this is some kind of evidence of feelings for Ken Adams.  
  
"I don' 'ave ta like 'im ta stare at 'im." She growls, and takes a rather savage bite of her sandwich.  
  
"It's intimidating." He comments, blandly.  
  
"Tha's the point." Bart responds.  
  
"To intimidate him." The tone is _just checking_ , and Bart seriously hates that tone, especially from Svlad, because he's never _just checking._

"Sure." She says.  
  
"Why?"  
  
"Why not?"  
  
Svlad looks irately stumped. "I suppose you're right." He allows, with a sort of scowl on his face.  
  
"I could stare at ya, if ya want." She offers, jokingly.  
  
His scowl deepens. "Kindly do not do that."  
  
"Too bad." Bart laughs, finishing off her sandwich.  
  
There's a long pause. Bart pulls out her mini packet of garbage organic chips that her foster mother packed in her bag and begins to crunch on them, loudly, hoping Svlad will leave. He does not. He licks his lips and looks at her nervously.  
  
"What?" She prompts, impatiently. He's not exactly great company.  
  
"Have you ever thought about running away?" Svlad asks, quickly. Bart can't help but raise her eyebrows.  
  
"Huh?" She says, immediately shoving another chip in her mouth. "Why would I wanna do that?"  
  
"Because this town is the worst?" He suggests, going a bit red in the cheeks. "Because there's nothing left for you?"  
  
"D'ya ever feel that way?" Bart asks, raising her eyebrows. "Sounds a bit personal, ta me."  
  
"I guess." He admits, and picks at his fingernails. "I mean, I think I'd like to be somewhere where I could make a difference."  
  
"Ya've got _nothin' to stay for_ , then?" She prompts, using her empty hand to do air quotes.

Svlad looks mildly offended, at this. "I've got _plenty_ to stay for." He says.  
  
"Like?" Bart challenges.  
  
"Like... school!" Svlad says, looking a bit distressed. Bart supposes it's because she turned the conversation on him. "If I want to be a detective, I've got to finish school!"  
  
"An’?" If he struggled coming up with one reason, what are the odds he struggles coming up with a second?  
  
"And..." Svlad trails off, looking sadly stumped.  
  
"See. Ya can't think of anythin'." Bart says, putting her chips down on the desk. "Ya do think about runnin' away. Ya _do_ wanna run away."  
  
"I do not." He says, but there's no fight in his tone.  
  
"Ya do, too." She insists. "Ya wanna change ya name an’ go ta live in Minnesota."  
  
Svlad wrinkles his nose. "Why Minnesota?" He asks, and his tone suggests he considers Minnesota not to be a state worth visiting, much less running away to.  
  
"’Cause who the fuck lives in Minnesota?" She explains. "Why're ya projecting ya weird fantasies onta me, anyway?"  
  
"I guess... maybe I don't have anything to stay for, but running away would be lonely, if it was just me.”  
  
"So, ya want me ta run away with ya?" Bart asks, because she's not entirely sure what's going on here.  
  
"Maybe I just want you to talk me out of it." Svlad says, softly.  
  
"I thought ya had _nothin' ta stay for_." She says, using air quotes.

He cocks his head to the side. "Maybe I want you to talk me _into_ it."  
  
"Tha's convoluted." She comments, having entirely given up on escaping Svlad Cjelli and his conversation. Ken Adams gets up, gathering his work, and leaves the library. Bart finds herself without somebody to stare at.  
  
"It is." Svlad agrees, sadly. "Anyway, the only other reason I'd stay doesn't know I exist."  
  
"Who?" He jerks his head to his left and Bart turns to see Todd Brotzman typing madly on his computer. "D'ya _fancy_ 'im?"  
  
"Maybe a little." Svlad agrees, hesitantly.  
  
"Give ya’self a reason ta stay, then." Bart says, scowling. "Go talk ta him."  
  
"I couldn't." He says.  
  
"Why not?" She responds.  
  
"He's cool and I'm not." Svlad says, as if this is an answer that makes sense.  
  
She shrugs, "Then let's steal a car an’ run away."  
  
"What?" Svlad's eyebrows fly up into his hairline. "Why?"  
  
" _Ya_ wanted ta go." Bart reasons, already shoving her belongings strewn across the desk into her backpack.  
  
"With _you_ ?" He asks, _just checking_ tone back right where she can punch it out of his teeth.  
  
"Wha's so bad about me?" She questions, not really meaning it.  
  
"Nothing," he says, quickly, "I just-"  
  
It finally dawns on her  when he glances at Todd Brotzman for the seventh time since sitting down. "Ya want ta run away with _Todd_ ."  
  
"... Maybe." Svlad admits.  
  
"Ya should've thought this out more b’fore talkin' ta me." Bart tells him, matter-of-fact.  
  
He bites his lip, fiddling with the strap of his messenger bag. "Maybe I-" Svlad begins.  
  
"Stop with the 'maybe's." She snaps, pulling her backpack straps over her shoulders. “D'ya wanna leave this shithole of a town or nah?"  
  
"I do." He replies, without hesitation.  
  
"D'ya wanna leave, like, right now?" Bart says, standing up.  
  
He gets to his feet, as well, clutching tightly at his messenger bag strap. "Yes."  
  
"Then let's go steal a car, Svlad Cjelli." He follows her out of the library without another word. Bart thinks maybe they'll get to the parking lot before he opens his mouth, again, but they barely make it to the second hallway.  
  
"You were right." Svlad says.  
  
"About what?" Bart sighs in response, adrenaline in her veins. A plan is taking shape in her mind. She wanted to kill Ken Adams, but killing Svlad Cjelli would be an easier affair.  
  
"I do want to change my name." This cheerful proclamation nearly stumps her.  
  
"Ta what?" She asks, because she knows it’s the right thing to do, and if she's gonna get him into a stolen car so she can eventually kill him, he has to trust her, right?  
  
"Dirk Gently." He says, in a proud tone. Bart snorts to wave away the self-consciousness that comes with realising she doesn't even really like the shortening of her already shitty name.  
  
"Tha's dumb." She says, and feels kind of awful for saying it.  
  
This barely fazes Dirk Gently. "Well, I like it." He says.  
  
"Whatever." Bart pulls experimentally at the door handle and it opens. She grins to herself. "Jus' get in the car."  
  
Dirk obediently hops into the passenger seat and looks at her, nervously. "You know how to hotwire a car?"  
  
Bart considers this question, and then shrugs. "Imma good guesser." She tells him.

Turns out, she is.

~

Farah seriously hates this crime scene. It's about two days old, and certainly smells that way. Osmund Priest was found dead on the floor of his bedroom, by his cleaner, Hugo Friedkin, who immediately called the police.

There are fingerprints on everything - like, almost everything; the door handles, the handrail, the kitchen counter, the record player and a few records, an empty bottle of raspberry tequila in the recycling bin, the fake stone that went through the window so they could open the front door - easily identifying three people, and the murder weapon, a hunting knife, is quickly found in the filter of the swimming pool. And then, the real kicker that kinda makes Farah wanna cry; Ken Adams’s wallet, found under the bed. He is _not_ one of the three people identified by fingerprints.

The coroner tells her that Osmund’s throat was slit from behind, and from the UV light used on the chair nearby, reveals that, despite their suspects best efforts to clean up, most of the blood splattered onto whoever was tied to the chair. Further investigation finds Svlad Cjelli’s fingerprints on the back of the chair, around where his hands could've reached, if he'd been tied to the chair. The rope hanging loosely through the slats in the chair suggest he was tied there. 

Farah cannot make sense of it. Four kids break into this guy's house, eat a bunch of his microwaveable meals, drink his tequila, and then upon his return home, Osmund ties down one of the four kids and one of the others slits his throat from behind. 

They shittily clean up the crime scene and run.

It could have been classified as self defence, if Svlad had been the one to attack him, but it was Todd Brotzman, Bartine Curlish, or Ken Adams, which means this is murder. One of these kids has become a murderer.

“This is a nightmare.” Farah sighs, and takes a sip of her cold coffee. She needs to contact Estevez and Zim to go through missing persons cases to see if any of these kids’ parents have noticed they've disappeared off the face of the planet.

~

 _Running away_ to Bart, appears to be stealing the fanciest car in the school parking lot, pulling up to a nice looking house on the richer side of town, and telling him that they're going to break in.

“What?” He cries, when she gets out of the car, letting it sputter and die, and begins to walk up the path to the front door. Dirk gets out of the car and chases after her.

“Ya heard me.” She replies, loftily, finding a large looking stone, and walking towards the front door. 

“You’re going to break into some strangers _house_ after stealing some other strangers _car_ ?” He says, following after her with only a quick glance behind to see if someone has seen them. “Why aren’t we _actually_ running away?”

“Chillax, Gently. Is all good.” At this, she tosses the rock through the window beside the door. They both wait for an alarm to go off. Nothing happens. Bart grins. “Check it out, these people were jus’ _askin’ fo’ it_.”

Dirk scowls, but follows her in once she unlocks the door through the hole in the window. The house is quite luxurious upon entering, with a huge staircase front and centre, an open plan kitchen and dining room to the left, and a sitting room to the right. Bart hums, thoughtfully, and walks into the sitting room, looking around and putting all stand up photographs face down on their respective surfaces. 

“This’ll be a nice place ta camp out.” She announces, inspecting a calendar, snorting, and sitting down on the couch. Dirk hovers, nervously, in the doorway, glancing at the calendar. The tenth of October, seven days away, is circled with black marker, with the word RETURN written on it in vaguely familiar hand. Bart inclines her head towards him, giving him a crooked grin. “Doncha think?”

He swallows, tapping the fingers on his right hand against his opposite elbow. “Sure.” Dirk agrees. He can’t help feeling on edge. Not only has he skipped out of school, early, but he’s also stolen an expensive car and broken into a house. Riggins will not be happy with him when he gets home. _If_ he gets home. “So, are we hanging here for the whole night or is this just a rest stop?”

“Why’re ya so skittish?” Bart replies, picking at her nails and kicking her feet up onto the coffee table. The mud that she tracked in, coated on her boots, stains the doily on the table.  He cringes at her obvious disregard for the cleanliness of the house they’ve commandeered, flinching away from the mess.

“I’m not sure if you noticed, Bart, but we’ve _broken into a house_ .” He says, feeling, very suddenly, frantic. “That’s a _serious_ legal infraction. We could serve _jail time_ for it.”

Bart looks nonplussed at the idea. “What an adventure, eh?” She says, calmly. Dirk’s phone rings. It’s probably Riggins calling to ask what Dirk wants to have for dinner. Bart frowns at Dirk as he stares at his phone screen and lets the call ring out. “Turn ya phone off, would ya? Is drivin’ me nuts.”

“No!” Dirk cries, a bit aghast, even if he knows it’s the best course of action.

“I thought ya wan’ed ta run away?” Bart says, in response. 

“I do-”

“Then turn ya phone off. An’ delete whatever trackin’ app he put on it.” 

Dirk stares at her. “How do you know he-”

“Foster parents like knowin’ where their kids are.” She says offhandedly, but with sadness in her eyes.

He groans, loudly, and it echoes around the minimalist house, rattling the bottles in the glass liquor cabinet. He sends off a quick text in an effort to stop the calls, something about being out with friends, and turns his phone off, sliding it into the back pocket of his jeans. “Bart, what is Wilson gonna say?”

At this, her expression goes stony. “Why the fuck should I care wha’ that bitch thinks o’ me?” She demands, putting her feet back onto the waxed floorboards, which is somehow better than further staining the doily on the coffee table.

“I don’t know.” Dirk mumbles through his palms, slowly slipping down the doorway. “It’s just, I know how much trouble I’ll be in with Riggins if we get caught!”

“Ta hell wit’ Riggins!” Bart yells, loud enough to startle Dirk out of his slump, figuratively and literally. “Ya think he’s gonna give a shit ‘bout ya once ya’re eighteen? Fuck no.”

“What?” Dirk asks, shocked to a certain extent that she has anything at all to say about his foster father. They hadn’t known each other very well, sitting in the same social services waiting room. They hadn’t known each other at all well through high school, up until now. It shocks him that he even remembers her foster mother’s name. It shocks him that she cares enough to have anything against his foster father.

“He’s a _weirdo_.” Bart insists, slapping her hands against the stylish grey leather couch cushion, her forehead creasing in her frustration. “Look, I’ll get ya outta here, jus’ ‘cause I think he’s creepy. But, right now, we’re hidin’ out ‘ere, ta cover our tracks.”

Dirk thinks staying in the same spot for long periods of time will only draw attention to them. “We stole a car, Bart.” He says blandly, sitting up properly. 

“And?” She responds, gesturing around the room. “No one’s found us yet, have they?” 

“We’ve been here for five minutes.” Dirk feels the need to remind her.

“Shut the fuck up.” Bart snaps, shooting him a hard look.

“That’s fair.” He agrees, raising his hands in surrender before just lying down in the doorway, because it’s easier than staying sitting up and continuing this particularly attack-y conversation.

Bart seems to share this sentiment. She wanders over to the liquor cabinet, opening it and pulling out a rather full bottle of tequila. “What’ll it take ta calm ya down?” She asks as she unscrews the cap off of the drink. Dirk decides not to even bother beginning to chastise her about.

“I don’t know...” Dirk says, directing his eyes back to the off-white ceiling.

She hums and takes a long sip of tequila (coughing ensues, and that’s how he can tell it's tequila). “I’m gonna text Todd Brotzman this address an’ ya can hang out wit’ him, fo’ a while.” 

“You want me to hang out with the guy I like in the house I helped you break into to calm down? Great plan.” Dirk says, sarcastically, getting to his feet and beginning to pace the room. “Are you _insane_?”

“Only a little bit.” He watches her type out and send the text in dismay, but doesn’t say another word to stop it. He just lets it happen. She offers him the bottle of tequila, and Dirk, against his better judgement, takes a swig.

This is his life now.

~

There are only four people in the waiting room and it's kind of freaking Tina out. Tina can't keep looking at them all when they don’t know why they’re there or what’s going on. Farah’s been hounding the media about keeping what they know to themselves until they have more information.

“One of them is obviously a couple.” She whispers to Farah, turning away from the window. “The other two are sitting across the room from each other. I can only assume that means we have three sets of parents.”

Farah scowls, flipping through the information on her clipboard. “There was no one to call for Ken.” She whispers, back, her voice sounding tight and upset. 

“Seriously?” Tina asks, and feels empathy for the kid well up in her stomach. She imagines what she'd feel if no one showed up for her. No wonder the kid ran away. 

“He's eighteen and has no legal guardian.” Farah continues, her eyes flicking up to Tina. 

“What the fuck.” She breathes, raising a hand to her mouth. Four kids, and realistically only one of them could've killed Osmund Priest. Yet none of them seemed like they were the type do it.

“Look, it was by chance that he could be placed at the scene, at all, and maybe not even that.” She sighs, biting her lip. Farah, obviously, can't take her eyes off of them. Tina knows she hates cases where they're hunting down runaway kids, and she knows Farah hates talking to the parents when it comes to those cases. “They could've just stolen his wallet.”

“You and I both know that Ken Adams is the type of guy to come to the police about his missing wallet.” Tina says to her, softly, placing her hand on Farah’s bicep. She tenses up for a second under the touch, but then relaxes and raises her own hand to cover Tina’s. The thing about being partners for this long means that Tina knows pretty much anything and everything there is to know about Farah Black.

“You're right.” Farah breathes, and squeezes Tina’s hand before pulling away entirely. 

“I know.” Tina replies softly, forcing herself to look back at the group of silent parents.

“I hate it when you’re right about this stuff.” She says, rubbing her eyes. God, how late was she here, last night? Why hadn't Tina noticed? “It’s so sad.”

“Look, all this means is that we have four suspects, and we already know that Svlad couldn’t have done it, because he was tied down,” Tina inwardly cringes as she finishes her sentence, “for some reason.” She really doesn't want to know why Svlad was tied to a chair when Osmund was murdered.

“Svlad Cjelli’s foster father showed up, Bart Curlish’s foster mother showed up, and Todd Brotzman’s parents showed up. I got Zim and Estevez to do a bit of digging, and the Brotzman’s have filed a missing persons case before, for their runaway daughter.” Farah hands Tina the file and Tina begins to flip through. The tightness returns to her voice as she says, “She was never located.”

“Do you think, if Todd Brotzman is _actually_ involved with this, maybe he's trying to find his sister?” Tina asks, the question twirling circles around her brain. The Brotzman’s don't look too grief stricken, considering their second child has also gone missing under suspicious circumstances, and that pisses Tina off.

“Possibly.” Farah allows. “That's one theory. We need to get as much information about these kids out of these people as we can, okay Tina?”

Tina takes a deep breath and takes hold of the door handle. “Okay.” She repeats. The door clicks open, under her hand. 

~ 

The door opens only moments after Todd rings the doorbell, and the redheaded girl who texted him finds him staring at the hole in the window. He immediately looks her up and down. “Sorry, you’re Bart?” He asks, checking his phone for the fifth time since walking here.

“The one an’ only.” She replies. Todd glances at the hole again. It’s shattered inwards. Bart tracks his glance, and grins, crookedly. It does not reach her eyes. “Forgot my keys.” 

He doesn’t believe her. “Okay, cool.”

“Dirk! Todd’s ‘ere! Do what ya want!” She shouts, suddenly, and Todd jumps at the volume of her voice. She grins at him, again. “I’m goin’ out.”

“You’re going _out_?” Demands an incredulous voice to the right and another redhead comes around the corner and nearly collides with Todd. In all fairness, actually responding to the cryptic message sent to him from an unknown number at all was a bad idea, but coming to the address sent was out of his mind crazy.

And now he finds Svlad Cjelli standing in front of him on the waxed floorboards of the house he and Bart Curlish appear to have broken into. Svlad just stares at him. Todd glances between him and Bart, who has her arms crossed over her chest and a look that says _I told you so_ on her face.

“I'll leave ya ta it, then,” she says, and promptly exits, glass crunching under her boots. Todd doesn't know why he came. Doesn't know why he's staying.

That’s Dorian’s nice, new Corvette, out there, in the driveway. They stole Dorian’s nice, new Corvette, and they've broken into someone's house. Todd should really just go home, and pretend he didn't see anything. Instead, he glances between Svlad and the broken glass.

“We should clean that up.” He says, for lack of any other conversation starters. Svlad nods.

“There should be a dustpan and brush in the kitchen.” He says and walks past Todd to get to the kitchen. “Under the sink, I think.”

Todd licks his lips and begins to toe at the glass, and the fake-looking rock in the middle of the shattered glass. He frowns. It looks really fake. Todd picks up the rock and turns it over. The bottom of it is flat and there's a circular line on it. He picks at the line with his blunt fingernails, and the compartment falls open, revealing a house key.

Honestly, what are the fucking odds? 

Svlad returns as Todd is fingering the key that came out of the rock and gapes, frustratedly at the whole scene. He begins to sweep the glad into his dustpan, muttering things like, “Stupid, _stupid_ Dirk, always letting people break into houses and not use hidden spare keys.” 

Todd decides not to ask. It's not like his day could possibly get weirder, right? He replaces the key in the stone and heads outside to replace it.

When he finally finds the where the fake stone was taken from, Svlad has cleaned up all the glass. They bump into each other outside the kitchen. “What do you want to do?” Svlad asks.

Todd’s mind immediately goes blank. “Uh…” He says, for lack of anything else to say. 

Svlad bites his lip. “D’you wanna drink some tequila?”

“Is it yours?” Todd asks, out of habit, because he might pretend he's punk, but he's really just a goody-two-shoes. 

Svlad bites his lip, guiltily. “Probably is, now.” He says, and gestures to the open bottle on the coffee table in the living room.

And Todd shrugs in agreement. It's not like his parents will be expecting him home for a while, now, so what does it matter if he turns up drunk?

~ 

(The Brotzman’s know nothing, and don't appear to be particularly concerned that their son is missing.) 

“Do you know where your son was, on the night of October third?” No. 

“Did he make any attempt to contact you at all, that day?” No.

“When did you notice his absence?” The following evening.

“Has he made any further attempts to contact you since going missing?” No.

(Scott Riggins proves more productive.)

“Do you know where your son was, on the night of October third?” He texted to say he was going out, that night, with friends, and wouldn't be back ‘til late. I figured since he hadn't been a very social kid he deserved this freedom.

“So, he made an attempt to contact you, that day?” Twice. When he texted to say he’d be out, and then a missed phone call at eleven-thirty-four pm from a phone I didn’t recognise. I listened to the voicemail and it was him. (Farah and Tina share a look over the table; the estimated time of death was eleven-thirty-two.) 

“When did you notice his absence?” When he didn't return my calls. He never came home, so I went to his school the next day, and his bike was still there. That's when I went to the police.

“Has he made any further attempts to contact you since going missing?” Like I said, he won't answer my calls or my texts. In fact, none of them will go through. I can't find him.

(Maria Wilson just looks mildly inconvenienced by her foster daughter’s disappearance, which is only mildly upsetting for the detectives sitting across from her.)

“Do you know where you daughter was, on the night of October third?” Of course not. She never stays in contact with me. I didn't think anything was off.

“Did she make any attempt to contact you, at all, that day?” She never does. Why would October third be any different? 

“When did you notice her absence?” When she didn't come home for dinner yesterday. We always have dinners together on Thursdays. Bartine respects that rule even if she doesn't respect any other rule.

“Has she made any further attempts to contact you since going missing?” No. Not that she ever really has, since I gave her a phone. I have no idea what she actually does with it. 

(They thank the parents and get up to leave. Maria clears her throat.) 

“Detective Black, Detective Teventino.” She says. They shoot each other worried looks and then turn back to her. “Why are we being questioned like our children killed somebody?”

The Brotzman’s laugh nervously. Farah inhales deeply. “I'm not at liberty to tell you anything specific, but the reason you were questioned so thoroughly is because we believe they did.”

“Did what?” Scott asks, looking quite out of the loop. 

“Kill someone.” Farah clarifies, and they all gasp, except for Maria who just raises an eyebrow and begins to chew on one of her perfectly manicured nails.

“That is to say that they are all suspects in a murder case.” Tina clarifies, and winces at how the parents continue to look more and more horrified with each passing second. 

“Todd would never kill someone.” Todd Brotzman’s mother says from behind her hand.

“He's not a violent person.” Todd Brotzman’s father continues, and returns to consoling his wife.

“We have reason to believe they killed Mr. Priest as an act of self defence.” Tina assures them. Scott somehow goes paler. 

“ _Osmund_ Priest?” He asks. Farah sits down in front of him. 

“You knew him?” She questions, because this could very well be crucial to the investigation. 

“We were coworkers.” Scott says, wringing his hands, in front of him. “Well, I was his superior, but, yes, I knew him. He came over to dinner, sometimes.” 

Tina raises her eyebrows. Farah sees an opening to get more information. “So, Svlad knew him, too?” She says. 

“Svlad never liked him.” Scott replies, shaking his head. “Said he found him creepy.”

“Did Svlad know where he lived?” Tina interjects, which is just the question Farah had lined up next. Farah smiles, gratefully, at her partner. 

“We never went there, so I don't think so.” He says, looking incredibly worried. 

“Did Svlad ever indicate to you that he felt endangered in the presence of or by Mr. Priest?” Farah asks him.

“A little,” Scott admits, and Farah tries not to show how surprised she feels on her face, “but he never made a big production about it.”

“Tina, can you-” Farah holds a hand out to start gesturing, vaguely, but Tina stands up, immediately.

“Got you.” She's only gone for a few minutes, and the Brotzman’s try to ask more pressing questions - how can Todd be placed at the scene? (The call to Mr Riggins was made with Todd’s phone, they find, later, and in the voicemail, Todd can be heard telling “Dirk” to stop.) How was Mr. Priest killed? (With a short hunting knife, from behind, his throat slit from ear to ear.) Do they think Todd was the one who killed him? (No.) - Tina returns, and slaps the evidence bag down the table in front of Scott. “D’you recognise this?”

Scott opens his mouth to say something, something that looks an awful lot like _I don't know_ , and then Maria snatches it off the table. “This is Bartine’s hunting knife.” She says, suddenly looking concerned.

“ _That_ is the murder weapon.” Farah says, and Maria’s eyes widen. “Forensics found it dumped in the filter of the swimming pool. It has Bartine’s fingerprints on it, but it's been cleaned so thoroughly we’re not sure how old those are.”

“Oh my god.” Maria says, and Tina takes the evidence bag from her.

“There's another thing.” Tina says to them all, pulling out another evidence bag, as well as print outs of each of the cards from the wallet. 

“What else could there be?” Todd Brotzman’s mother groans.

“We found this wallet under the bed at the scene of the crime.” Tina says, passing it to Todd Brotzman’s father, and laying the photo of Ken Adams’s ID photo on the table.

“Who is Ken Adams?” Todd Brotzman’s father asks, looking confused, and passing the wallet to Scott. 

“Our question exactly. He was either there with them when Mr. Priest was killed, or they stole his wallet.” Farah says. “He is the third murder suspect.”

“I thought there were four of them in the house, with Mr. Priest?” Maria says, having regained ear composure.

“Svlad couldn't have killed him,” Tina says, obviously trying to put it gently. “He couldn't have done it, because there is evidence of him being tied to a chair at the time of the murder, and according to where blood splattered, he would have still had to be tied to it when Osmund’s throat was slit.” 

Scott goes paler, and grips the edge of the table so hard his knuckles go white. “Why was he tied up?” He asks.

“We don't know.” Farah admits.

Todd Brotzman’s mother leans forward. “When _will_ you have answers?”

“When we find your children.” Tina replies, immediately.

“Please don't disclose any of the information revealed here.” Farah says to them all, standing up again. Tina gathers up all the evidence shown to them. “It could jeopardize the investigation.” 

“Of course.” Says Maria, and Farah and Tina exit. Farah feels as though she has gained very little from the experience and it frustrates her to no end. Plus, now they have to print out a bunch of nondisclosure forms and make sure they're signed. She doesn't like this investigation one bit. 

~ 

Ken hates walking through this neighbourhood. It is, of course, a shortcut so he can get home quicker and avoid the chances of Dorian deciding he needs help with his wifi router, again, and paying Ken an amazing amount of money to try and fix something that doesn't need fixing while he deals an incredible amount of a myriad of different drugs in the front room.

Walking through the incredibly rich part of town is a small price to pay to avoid all that. 

“‘ey! ‘ey, Ken Adams!” Calls a voice, and from behind his clunky headphones, he thinks, for a second, it's Dorian, but when he glances across the street it's just a crazy looking redhead girl in overalls and a muscle top. The same crazy looking redhead girl in overalls and a muscle top who was staring at him in the library, earlier. He has no idea how she knows his name.

Nevertheless, Ken is a curious person, and pulls his headphones off. The girl crosses the street, and begins to walk with him. “you live ‘round ‘ere?” She asks, excitedly. 

“No.” He replies, shortly, and glances at her, out of the corner of his eye. “And I don't think you do, either.”

She laughs, and it sounds like a cat getting its tail caught in a garbage disposal. Ken tries not to jump. “Yeah, I’m takin’ care o’ a friend’s house while they’re away.” The redhead girl gestures behind her at a huge hedge, and Ken kind of shudders. This whole place give him the creeps. “D’you wanna come over?”

“Not really.” He says, and walks a bit faster. She catches up to him.

“C’mon, man. The owner’s said we ‘ave free reign o’ the liquor cabinet an’ shit.” Her teeth are crooked and a little yellow, and all of a sudden, Ken is reminded, against his will, of all those nature documentaries he watched as a kid, and of the footage of predators, backing their prey into a corner. This girl feels dangerous, and everything in him is screaming at him to get away. She does not notice the mounting horror in him, and continues to speak. “It’s gonna be great.” 

“No offence, but I’m getting some serious _Get Out_ vibes from this whole proposition, so I’m gonna say ‘no’.” Ken responds, and is quite proud of himself for not letting his voice shake as he says it. The girl frowns, but it isn't malicious. For a second, Ken thinks maybe his instincts were wrong, and she was being genuine, had no intent to hurt him. 

“That sucks. Dirk an’ Todd an’ I were all hopin’ ya’d come.” She says.

“Todd Brotzman?” He asks, immediately. The redhead girl nods, excitedly. Ken knows Todd Brotzman. They have the same English class. They worked on a presentation about _King Lear_ , together. He can trust Todd Brotzman, if he’s really there. 

“Yeah! Him!” She perks up even further. “Look, if ya come, I'll even drive ya home, after. Promise.”

Ken still feels a little nervous about the whole thing. It's not exactly like anyone would notice if he went missing, which is a little sad, he admits, but it also means there's no one to say “hey, call the police if I'm not home in the next ten hours” to. 

“What was your name again?” He asks, already resigning himself to the idea that he might be dead in the next few hours. His paranoia is getting the best of him.

The girl holds out her hand, and says, “Bart Curlish.” Ken shakes her hand with only a small amount of hesitation. He's got to stop thinking the worst of people, just because of the way they look. Or just because they stare, ominously, at him across the library, sometimes.

Bart Curlish walks beside him, back to whatever house she's taking care of. The driveway is curved, hiding the house from view until the end of the driveway. There's a bright blue Corvette parked right up against the porch.

Ken gives the car a nervous look. “That's Dorian’s car.” He says, knowingly. He wonders if Dorian’s noticed it’s gone, yet.

“It is too, ain’t it.” She replies, nonchalantly. There is no excuse that goes along with this statement. It's very clear that Bart stole Dorian’s car. Ken feels even more nervous when he sees the hole in the window, and Bart quickly says, “Lost my key. I figure I'll pay for the repairs when I find it, otherwise I'll jus’ have ta make another hole, ya know?”

“No offence, but it seriously looks like you stole someone's car and broke into this house.” He says, chuckling, nervously.

“Does look like that.” Bart agrees with him, nodding, as she opens the door, and waves him inside. “Ain't what ‘appened, but it's sure what it looks like.”

Inside, he hears Todd and someone else, laughing, and finds them in the living room, a record on, with the red head drinking from an opened bottle of tequila, and Todd drinking what looks to be a very expensive bottle of beer. “So, this is the point where I say to him, ‘Puffles faked his death’, but he, of course, doesn't believe me-”

Todd catches sight of them over the other person's shoulder - the person looks a lot like Svlad Cjelli, from Ken’s history class - and smiles. “Hey, what's up, Ken? Dirk, look, it's Ken.”

The boy - Svlad, Dirk, whatever, they're one and the same, apparently - turns to look at them and smiles too. “Bart! I thought you said you were going out!” 

“I did. An’ found Ken, ‘ere.” Bart bumps her elbow into Ken’s. Ken responds in kind as a show of good faith. He feels a little less like he's gonna get murdered. “He's gonna hang with us, for a bit, right, Ken?”

Ken nods, and dumps his bag by the doorway. “Sure. I've got nothing better to do.”

(Later, he wishes he'd left, right then. Later than that, he wishes they'd all left, right then.) 

~

It's late, and Tina is pretty much dead on her feet, yet, at the same time, more energised than ever. This case is running her into the ground, and she just wants to figure it all out. It would make her feel so much better. She's sure Farah feels the same, though Farah would never say so. “I want to talk to the cleaner again.” Tina says, standing near the coffee machine.

“Seriously?” Farah sighs, dropping her spoon in her cup of tea. “Again?”

“He's _hiding_ something!” She says, maybe a bit louder than necessary. “You _know_ he is!”

“You don't know that, Tina.” Farah says, quietly, and her hand on Tina’s makes Tina’s voice go softer. Farah doesn't really like touching unless she initiates it, and she does that very rarely. Tina would be lying if she said being the person Farah touches most didn't make her feel special.

“I do!” Tina insists, lightly, sending Farah in imploring look. “He's so shifty!” 

“Tina-” She says, with a wrinkled nose, pulling her hand away to continue to stir her tea. 

“He saw something, or heard something, or found something, and he's hiding it.” Tina takes a sip of her coffee and immediately burns her tongue. “It's crucial.” She says, sticking her tongue out to cool it, well aware that she's killed all the taste buds at the front of her tongue.

Farah side eyes her, “Tina, you have no proof-” 

“Just,” and they both pause because Tina instinctively put her hand on Farah’s shoulder. Farah lets Tina keep her hand there. This indicates triumph, in the near future, for Tina. “Just let me talk to him.”

Farah scowls at her, but there's no real heat behind it. “Fine.” She says. “But _you_ have to call it in. I hate cleaning up your messes.”

“Thanks, Farah.” Tina sings, kissing her partner on the cheek as she hurries away to have their single witness brought in for questioning.

Farah leaves in a hurry, on the phone with someone, a few minutes later, leaving her coat behind. Tina decides to call her up, later, to ask what it was about. It only takes Hugo Friedkin half an hour to get to the station. She has more evidence to talk to him about.

“Hi, Hugo.” She greets him, cheerily, opening the door for him. “Why don't you take a seat?”

“Do I have, like, a choice?” He asks with a pout. He seems to do that, a lot, Tina’s noticed, and it's not a good look for him. 

“Not really.” Tina admits, trying to keep her sunny disposition in place.

“I'll take the seat, then.” He sighs, and plunks down in the hard plastic chair across the table from Tina. 

“Good idea.” She agrees, and takes her own seat, putting the evidence folder down on the table. “So, Hugo, I know my partner and I had a chat with you when you found your former employers body, but I wanna go over some more details.”

“Okay.” Hugo grumbles. He is quite clearly the type of person who is affected by death as it happens, and then does not care about it, afterwards. 

“Do you recognise this boy?” Tina holds up a printed out copy of Ken Adams’s ID photo from his driver's license. 

Hugo squints. “Yeah. He used to walk past the house every day, at about three fifteen or something, wearing these big, clunky headphones.”

“Did he ever go into the house?” She asks, not even really wondering if Ken had.

He shakes his head. “I don't think he ever even glanced at it.” Hugo tells her. 

“So, he never came into contact with Mr. Priest?” Tina says, raising her eyebrows.

“Not that _I_ saw.” He admits. “Always looked like he was just walking home.”

“Right, of course.” Tina pulls three more pictures out of her folder. These pictures were harder to get hold of, but she eventually got each of their high school ID photos. “Do you recognise any of these people?” 

Hugo glances over Bartine and Todd’s faces, but then stops dead when he sees Svlad. Colour drains from his face. This is quite telling.

“Hugo, tell me, truthfully, have you ever seen this boy before?” She taps Svlad’s photo and pushes it closer to him.

“I - no.” He says, swallowing visibly. He begins to look around the room, nervously. This guy has obviously never been properly questioned, before, because he is apparently unaware about his tells.

“Hugo, if you saw something, we need to know about it. It could help us figure out what happened.” Tina leans forward on her elbows, ignoring the way her head begins to pound. “Don't you want to know who killed Mr. Priest?” 

“I've never seen him before.” Hugo protests. “I didn't see anything.”

“There's no point in hiding anything.” She tells him. 

“I'm not hiding anything.” He says, through gritted teeth. 

She sighs and pulls the evidence bag out from under the table, placing it adjacent to Svlad’s picture. “Have you seen this knife before?” Tina asks him. Hugo’s eyes widen. 

“Is that the knife that killed Mr. Priest?” He asks, voice shaky. So the death _is_ having an effect on him. Never would have been able to tell, otherwise.

“It is.” Tina agrees. “We found it in the filter of the pool. We know who owned it, but we don't know who used it.”

“I don't-” Hugo looks between her and Svlad and the knife and pushes himself away from the table. “Can I just go?” 

“Of course.” Hugo gets to his feet and stuffs himself back into his coat. He doesn't look like the cleaning type. He looks like he probably wanted to be a Navy Seal. Tina can't let him go like this. He isn't saying something. “Hugo?”

“What?” He snaps. Tina frowns. 

“We just want to help. None of us want anyone else to die. If it were me, if I saw something, I'd want the police to figure it all out as quickly as they could.” 

Hugo goes red and walks out. Tina likes to think that she did something right, but it feels like she made absolutely no progress. 

~

Bart feels uneasy. And that's not nice. She doesn't usually feel anything. Of all the things to feel, uneasy would be at the bottom of her list. Pain is only just above that.

Pain she can take. Uneasiness she can't.

Ideally, she'd kick Dirk and Todd out, and she'd take action, while they were gone, and too tipsy to think anything was up. But that'd be too suspicious. Bart supposes she's just gotta get them all blackout drunk. Hopefully suspicion will only fall on her once Ken is dead and she's so far out of town that no one can catch her.

Except, right now, while the sun is setting and she and Ken are preparing microwave meals out of this person’s fridge, she doesn't…

She feels strangely content. Content and unease don't mix nicely. They make something sour bubble in her stomach, make her feel sick. 

Right now, in this moment, when Ken is humming some old boy band song and reading the back of a box for the instructions, she actually doesn't want to kill him. Bart wonders what exactly made her change her mind.

“What song is that?” She asks, and Ken stills. The bubbling in her stomach gets fiercer. She ruined the moment.

“I'll stop.” Ken says.

“No, don't.” Bart replies, quickly, turning around to look at him. His eyes are wide. “I jus’ wanna know what song it is.”

Ken licks his lips, his forehead staying nervously creased. “ _As Long As You Love Me_. Backstreet Boys.”

“you know the words?” Bart asks, and tries not to gesture with the knife she's using to cut the film off the top of the microwave meals.

“Why?” The nervousness fades and is replaced with pleased confusion. Obviously he has no idea what to think of her. It's good they’re in the same boat. She has no idea what to think of him.

Bart shrugs, and turns back to the now-warm macaroni and cheese. “‘Cause songs are use’ly better with words.” She tells him.

There's a long pause, and she thinks, again, that she's ruined the moment. And then he starts singing, softly. 

“I don't care who you are, where you're from, what you did, as long as you love me.” So he's not a fucking rockstar, but he's not exactly shit, either. “Who you are, where you're from, don't care what you did, as long as you love me.”

Bart laughs as Ken moves onto the verse, getting a bit louder as he gets more confident. Maybe she doesn't want to kill anyone. Maybe she was wrong.

She kneels down to get the final microwave meal - tandoori chicken on rice - out of the microwave and hands it to Ken, who's already balancing a beef stir fry in one empty palm. He goes back to humming, managing to balance the tandoori chicken on his arm and pull four forks out of the cutlery drawer with his free hand. 

They carry the meals out to the side of the pool, where Todd and Dirk are significantly less sober and significantly less panicked about this whole situation. She makes an assumption and passes Todd the stew and Dirk the macaroni and cheese. They both make drunk noises of approval and begin to dig in as soon as Ken hands them forks. 

Ken gives her the tandoori chicken. She smiles, a little. 

Maybe she won't kill anyone at all. Maybe she’ll just take her rag tag group and run away. If Todd and Ken want to. She wants Ken to want to. She doesn’t know why. 

“Why does this taste like water?” Dirk asks, wrinkling his nose at a forkful of macaroni and cheese.

Bart rolls her eyes and pushes him into the pool. He drops the container of macaroni and cheese on the side of the pool as he falls with a shout.

Well, there's a thought. A thought she's had before. A thought she's tried to engage before. 

Maybe she should kill Dirk.

~

It's midnight and whoever is ringing her doorbell over and over is going to get a piece of her mind. Farah has a crying headache, and hasn't had a very good day, anyway, so this is just putting the cherry on top of her terrible day. 

However, the person on the other side of her front door turns out to be Tina and Farah begrudgingly lets her in. “What's going on?” She grumbles, shutting the front door behind her and switching on a light. 

Tina throws a folder down on her breakfast bar, looking like she's on crack or something, and says, “I told you - I _told you_ \- I _knew_ he was hiding something, and then he turns up at the station like an hour later and he just goes, ‘I don't know if this helps, but I feel like you should see it’ and this is so absolutely _bananas_ , you're not gonna believe-” Tina stops dead when she looks up at Farah and then Farah remembers she's not wearing pants. She self consciously pulls at the hem of her Wonder Woman t-shirt and rubs at her eyes.

“Who?” She asks, and Tina realises she’s staring, because she looks away with red cheeks. “What's going on, Tina?” 

Tina swallows. “Hugo Friedkin showed me when he was hiding.” She says, and opens the folder.

Farah slaps a hand to her mouth. “Oh my god.” She says, and Tina nods. She's significantly less excited, now. Obviously the reality of what these are is sinking in and the elation of being right about Hugo is fading.

“I didn’t believe it, either.” She says, and fingers one of the photos paperclipped to the edge of the manila folder. Farah kind of wants to throw up. “But these have Priest’s fingerprints on them. And also Bartine’s, which is to be expected, if she’s the one who left them by the body. And these are the clothes Svlad was last seen wearing, according to Scott.”

“You showed _Scott_ these?” Farah questions, suddenly panicked. Tina isn't dumb. She wouldn't show this kind of evidence to a civilian, no matter how involved, not before consulting Farah.

“No.” Tina says, shaking her head hard enough for her hair to come undone from its ponytail. She taps one of the photos that Farah can't look at straight on. “These are the clothes he described when we spoke to him. Remember?” 

“Oh my god.” She says, and presses the back of her wrist to her mouth, leaning heavily on the breakfast bar. “Tina, _fuck_ , this is why he was tied to the chair. This is _sick._ ”

“I know.” Tina agrees, grimly. “Hugo said he found them scattered around Priest’s body when he found him, along with a strip of paper that just said _Pedophile_ on it. He thought it'd only be worse if we found the pictures, too, so he took them.” 

Farah swallows back the vomit rising in her throat, and says, “What the fuck are we gonna tell Scott?” 

“Nothing, for now.” Tina responds, and closes her eyes, obviously as sick to her stomach at the pictures as Farah, and upon opening them she flips the folder closed. “But I think we’ve identified a motive.”

Farah laughs, mirthlessly. “You think?” She asks, sarcastically. Now that it's clear as day that the kids killed him to get him away from Svlad, she doesn't feel as motivated to find them. At least, she doesn't want them locked up, now. She wants them in therapy.

“Are you okay?” Tina asks, warily, pushing the folder away. 

“I am quite obviously not okay!” Farah says, laughing again, but it's more hysterical this time. There's a different kind of lump rising up her throat, now, and it stings the rawness of her throat. 

“If this is freaking you out-” Tina says, gesturing to the closed folder.

“I am more than freaking out-” Farah responds, pushing her hair from her eyes. 

“Farah-” Tina tries, but Farah’s gone off the deep end.

“This is the tip of the fucking iceberg!” She yells, and the tears are stinging at her eyes again. Too much is happening, and she can't process it, she can't deal with it, she can't do anything. The fact that this case is so morally fucked up, and the fact that she's hunting four kids who are sorely in need of help, and the fact that she had to see those photos. She can’t-

“Farah!” Tina cries and wraps her arms around Farah’s shoulders. Farah’s knees buckle. Tina goes down with her.

Tina doesn't protest when Farah just curls into her front and cries into her t-shirt. She just pats Farah’s back, her chin on Farah’s head, whispering that it was okay. Farah lets her sobs quiet down before she pulls away and rubs her eyes. “...my dad died.” She admits, looking down at her lap.

“What?” Tina gasps, and Farah swallows at the new wave of sobs in her throat.

“That's why I went home early.” She says, and her voice sounds raw, even to her. The ache at her temples has only worsened. “Eddie called. Dad died a couple of hours ago.”

“Oh my god.” Tina knew about how Farah felt about her father, but even she can see this is a blow.

“I didn't love him anymore,” Farah says, and finally looks up at Tina’s pale, concerned face, “and he hated me, but, T, this means _I'll never be good enough for him_.” 

“Don't say that.” Tina says, immediately, cupping Farah’s face. 

“It's true.” Farah insists. “I was never good enough for him. I never will be.” 

“Fuck him.” She whispers, stroking tears from Farah’s face with her thumbs. “You're good enough for me. Better than. You're so great, no one could ever hope to live up to you.” 

“That's not true, T.” Farah shakes her head, and Tina gently releases her. Farah wants the pressure back. Farah wants the reassurance she is so desperately fighting against. 

“It is. Look, fuck this case - for a second - fuck your dad.” Tina trips over her words like she's trying to find what she wants to say, the most. “What do you need?”

“I don't know…” Farah says, and leans into her, her chin hooked over Tina’s shoulder.

“Do you want me to stay?” Tina asks, so softly Farah barely hears it.

“Please.” She replies, just as softly. Tina hugs her tighter, and doesn't let go.

~

Dirk doesn't generally like swimming. He was never taught, not properly, and as he grew older Riggins never saw reason to take Dirk to the public pool and such. So Dirk is pretty unprepared for suddenly being pushed into the pool, without any notice, and expected to get him out of that situation.

He splutters as he resurfaces, chlorine in his eyes, and coughs water out of his mouth. The edge of the pool is incredibly grabbable, and he grabs it, keeping himself afloat by kicking, frantically at the water.

“That was quite rude,” he informs the now-laughing Bart. Todd’s mouth quirks at the corner, almost fondly. “I'll have you know I have no idea how to swim.”

Todd gets to his feet and reaches out for Dirk. “I'll help you out.”

Dirk peers at him, unsure. “You're strong enough, for that?” He asks. 

Todd shrugs, “One way to find out.”

Typically, upon putting his full weight in Todd’s hands, Todd is tugged into the pool with a cut-off yell. Resurfacing, once more, Dirk scowls at Ken and Bart losing their shit, by the pool. “Now you're just being cruel. I could tug the both of you into the pool, as well.” He warns them, and Todd comes up coughing and laughing, soaked from head to toe.

“Not if we don't let you grab us.” Ken says, and actually, literally sticks his tongue out at him.

Dirk is a bit aghast. Todd swims over to an elevated part of the pool to help himself out of it. Dirk follows after him, seating himself on the elevated part of the pool.

“I think I deserve another drink.” He announces, and glances, sadly, down at his now-soaked clothes. 

Bart passes him the half empty bottle of tequila and Dirk takes a long swig that makes him shudder, from how strong it is. It’s one of those high-brand German tequila bottles, so it’s probably got a higher alcohol content. Todd looks sort of impressed, returning to his stew. “How is it you can drink tequila like that?” He asks. 

Dirk ponders this question. “I feel like I've been building up an immunity.” He responds, rather genuinely.

“Bullshit.” Todd calls, half a potato in his mouth.

“Is not.” Dirk returns. “You try it.”

“I'd rather not die, thanks.”

“No one’s ever died from drinking a mouthful of tequila from the bottle. C’mon.” Peer pressure is like that. Todd caves almost immediately, joining Dirk on the elevated part of the pool, nod taking the bottle from him with a grim expression on his face. 

“If this is the worst idea ever, I'm gonna get you back.” Todd mutters, raising the lip of the bottle to his mouth.

“The worst idea ever was whoever kept people eating tapioca until they got it right.” Dirk replies, hautighly.

“Shut up.” Todd says and jabs his elbow into Dirk’s ribs. He takes a long swig of tequila and winces violently as he swallows. He groans once his mouth is clear and glares, jokingly, at Dirk. “You're the worst. That is so strong. I don’t know how you can stand it.” Todd informs him, with another groan, handing him the bottle and curling into himself, with a laugh.

“Now you're having fun!” Dirk tells him, taking a swig and putting the bottle on the poolside.

“I don’t…” Todd attempts to respond, but shakes his head, apparently thinking better of it. “Sure.”

He looks rather nice with his hair pasted to his head like that. Dirk thinks so, anyway. 

That’s why it’s so easy to lean forward and kiss him.

His brain is too muddled to immediately regret the act, but a bit of it sneaks in while he waits for Todd to kiss him back. He almost pulls away, and then Todd’s hands are on his arms and he is kissing back, and he falls all the way into the pool again, but that’s okay, it really is, even if he can’t swim, he can float, and Todd seems to know what’s happening, so it’s all okay.

(He doesn’t even care that his phone is in the back pocket of his jeans until later, when he’s stripping them off, numbly, in the bathroom, and finds it dead.)

~

She can't sleep. It's all her fault, anyway. Farah is curled up beside her, wearing a huge Wonder Woman t-shirt, looking ill at ease, even in her half-sleep. Tina can't sleep, and all she wants to do is comfort her friend, but she's scared to.

What if Farah takes it the wrong way? She knows Farah knows how she feels for her, she knows it's out in the open, anyway, without ever having been spoken.

She can't let that all happen. She can't jeopardize it all just because her heart is crawling up her throat, ready to reveal it all. She wants to hold her friend. She wants to kiss her friend. She wants to give her all the space she needs. She wants to crowd into her space, have her all.

She is at war, and she can't sleep. She should leave before she does something dumb. 

Farah exhales loudly, and curls into Tina’s side, her legs tangling with Tina’s. It's like a brick on Tina’s chest. She tries to go to sleep. 

~

Dirk tugs Todd by the hand back into the house, and onto the grey leather couch in the living room, and Todd lets him, because he's too drunk on tequila and messy, wet kisses in the pool. 

He lets Dirk settle over him, between his legs, on the couch, using his elbows to hold himself up so he won't flop onto Todd. Todd just doesn't want to feel asleep. That's all he feels these days. Nothing holds his attention, nothing seems real. 

Dirk feels real.

He really does, right there, up against Todd, splayed over every inch of his body that he can reach without it being beyond reason, he's making Todd feel real. Todd can't think about it, he's too overwhelmed, drinking in the feeling.

Dirk slips a hand up Todd’s soggy shirt and Todd wakes up, at this. He shouldn't be letting this happen. Dirk’s not in his right mind. _Todd_ isn't in his right mind. He should be _stopping_ this. 

It's about the time that Dirk is trying to pull Todd’s shirt off that he actually processes these thoughts enough to push him away. Dirk falls backwards, off the couch, onto his ass, staring at Todd with wide eyes.

“What's wrong?” He asks Todd, in a slurred voice. Todd winces. 

“We shouldn't do this.” He replies, trying to speak less like he has something caught in the corner of his mouth. 

Dirk looks hurt. “You don't like me?”

“I do.” He does.

“It's not nice to lie to people.” Dirk informs him, getting back to his feet with a jerkiness that screams he isn't even sober enough to stand up properly.

“I'm not lying,” Todd protests, pushing his shirt back down from where it was bunched up by his collarbones. “I just don’t think so early on in our friendship is the best time to-”

Dirk’s face closes off, like a cloud passing in front of the sun. “Tell Bart I went to bed.” He says, and turns, clumsily, on his heel, heading for the stairs.

“Dirk, wait, we should talk about this.” Todd calls after him, following closely, as Dirk attempts to navigate the staircase. 

“I don't want to talk about this.” He huffs and hurries up the stairs.

“Dirk-” Todd manages to get out before Dirk slams the bedroom door behind him. 

~

Farah feels on the edge of sleep, but every time she closes her eyes, she either sees her father's disappointed stare right before she left, after Christmas, last year, or the pictures of Svlad, in the folder, downstairs.

It makes her feel prickly all over. She doesn't want to think of it.

Tina’s breathing, beside her, is too uneven to be asleep. Farah thinks for a minute and a half over whether she really wants to - whether it would be rude - if she should - if Tina would even let her -

“Farah?” Tina mumbles, turning over and staring at her in the near darkness. “Are you okay?” 

Farah doesn't know what to say. She doesn't -

She reaches her hand out across the miles and bare inches of sheets and touches the tips of her fingers to Tina’s lips. Tina sucks in what must be a shocked breath, but she doesn't reach out to stop her.

“Can I-?” Farah croaks. 

“ _Yes_.” Tina breathes.

~ 

He lays a towel from the supply closet over Todd’s shoulders. “You okay?” Ken asks, a bit dizzily, taking a seat beside him.

“I'm an idiot.” Todd tells him, sadly. His shitty old iPhone is sitting in his open palm, open to his home screen, which is a picture of a young boy who looks a lot like Todd, and a little girl with brown eyes and bangs that nearly hang all the way over her eyes, in the backseat of a car, smiling and giving each other bunny ears.

“Okay?” He replies, curiously, putting the mostly empty bottle of tequila on the coffee table.

“I'm just…” he gestures at the staircase that Bart is beginning to climb. “I'm just an idiot.”

“Okay.” Ken decides agreeing is probably his best bet.

“You know?” Todd asks him, hugging the towel around his shoulders. 

“Yeah.” Ken purses his lips and pats Todd on the shoulder. “Is this about Dirk?” 

“Yeah.” He agrees. “He…I’m-”

“An idiot?” He suggests. 

“Yes!” Cries Todd, and then sinks back into moping. “Exactly.”

~

Farah kisses her softly, laying half on top of her, one hand on her cheek, the other beside Tina’s shoulder, on the mattress, obviously trying to keep herself steady. 

Tina cannot fucking believe this. She reaches up, carefully, and runs her hands down Farah’s arms, and back up into her hair, taking every chance to touch her as it comes.

A thought, however unwelcome in this moment, occurs to her, and she makes herself pull away. “Farah, do you really want me to - do you really feel up to-?” 

Farah frowns at Tina, one hand on her hip, the other on her shoulder, and rolls them over, so Tina is situated over her. And then she nods. “Please.” She says, as if Tina could ever deny her.

~

The room is dark. Dirk’s drawn all the curtains, and burrowed under the heavy covers. She closes the door almost all the way closed behind her, as she enters, and looks around the room, as if she could see in the dark. 

The light from the hallway shines through the crack in the door onto Dirk’s face and Bart is a little taken back at the streaks of drying tears on his face. 

She wonders why he was crying. She wonders if it was maybe just that he changed his mind, or maybe he realised her ulterior motives, or maybe just something else. Either way, she feels that sense of hesitance again, that feeling of shame that overwhelms her and demands of her why she had ever thought she could move to end his life.

Bart wonders if maybe she was wrong. Bart wonders if maybe she just got caught up in the idea of it all that she didn't realise the gravity.

What had she missed? What had she forgotten? What was changing her mind like a light switch being flicked on and off? 

She never thought she was so hesitant, before. 

She didn't want to be. She doesn't want to be. She shouldn't be. This will all be for nothing if she doesn't kill Dirk, right now. 

Bart pulls her pant leg up and pulls the hunting knife out of the sheath around her ankle. It’s cool against her palm. Cool, like the day she got it, handed to her by Wilson with a near-smile on her face. She's always known what she wanted it for, but now she's not so sure.

That scares her. It shouldn't. It does.

Bart clenches her fists, and sighs, frustratedly, trying to sort out all the swirling thoughts in her head. She shoves aside one of the curtains and gazes out at the street. Headlights begin to shine on the asphalt and she watches in abject horror as a taxi pulls to a stop at the end of the driveway.

Whoever lives in this house is back. _Early_.

She does what she can think of. She dives under the bed, and holds her breath.

~

Farah can't help but be surprised when Tina doesn't go all in, immediately. She only furrows her brows and leans down to press a soft kiss to the corner of Farah’s mouth.

The kisses continue, slowly, softly, down her chin, down onto her neck. The first graze of teeth has Farah’s fingers curling into the singlet Tina’s wearing.

“You okay?” Tina whispers, lips grazing her skin, making her shiver.

“I'm grand.” Farah responds, and feels Tina grin. 

~

It's very simple, really. He shouldn't have followed her out of the school. He shouldn't have climbed into Dorian’s car with her. He shouldn't have let her break into the strange, familiar house. He shouldn't have gotten drunk with the guy that he liked and made out with him, terribly, if his reaction was anything to go off. He shouldn't have gotten embarrassed and retreated to the strange, familiar smelling bedroom, and he certainly shouldn't have fallen asleep in the bed. He should have stayed at school and biked home like he usually did. But he didn't.

Dirk feels quite certain, from the moment he wakes up, with Todd Brotzman hovering over him, that he is going to die. Todd’s finger is against his lips and the fearful look in his eyes tells Dirk that something is terribly wrong. He goes still, in his awakening, well aware that Todd is a very careful person, possibly the most careful person he's ever met, and it's got to take something particularly scary to make him look this afraid.

"He's home." He whispers, and his whisper wavers like fingers being ripped from the keys of a piano.

"Who?" Dirk whispers back, and glances around the room, still half asleep.  
  
"The guy who lives here." Headlights sweep the window. Someone is speaking outside. Ken stares with wide eyes at Dirk from the closet, across the room.

They were careful. They checked the calendar. The owner of the house wouldn't be back for a few days, now.

“But he wasn't going to be home until-” He stops, dead, the realisation hitting him like being pushed into a pool. “The tenth.”

“Dirk?” Todd questions, frantically.

“I know who lives here.” Dirk says in a voice that must be quite scared if the way Todd’s face pales is anything to go off.

The front door slams shut. "He's in the house."  
  
"We've got to hide." Dirk splutters, attempting to throw Todd off of him. He can hear the house owner on the creaking floorboards, downstairs.  
  
"He probably already knows someone's here. You spread your shit out downstairs.” Ken says from the closet, looking ashen faced. There's a clattering noise in the kitchen.

“Look, he's gonna come in here, and he's gotta find one of us. We’ll get out of this, I promise, but, right now, you need to pretend it's just you.” Todd tells him, seriously. 

“But-”

“I'm gonna hide with Ken." Todd says, and does just that.

Dirk has just enough time to see them slip into their hiding places and sit up before he hears the creak of the stairs. "Wait!” He cries, quietly. Fear is growing in his chest like a balloon filled with dread. This can’t be happening. 

"Well, hello."  
  
Dirk stops dead, his blood running cold. He knew. He _knew_ , somewhere in the back of his mind that there was something wrong with this house. Of all the houses in all of Seattle he could've walked into, he walked into the one that belongs to-

"M-Mr. Priest." He says, realising far too late that he's fucked beyond belief. That he's _trapped_ .  
  
"Now," Mr Priest says, shutting the door behind him, with a grin that makes alarms go off on Dirk's head, "what are you doing in my house?"  
  
Riggins had always kept Dirk away from him, he had always been Dirk's first line of defence. Now Dirk's in his house. On his turf. He's so _fucked_ .  
  
He swallows, visibly, and says, "I didn't know you lived here." It's a shitty excuse, but it's true. Dirk is just waiting for Todd to spring out from the closet. He's just waiting for Ken to launch himself out of the cupboard, to _prevent this_ .  
  
"Now, now, Svlad. Didn't your dad ever teach you not to lie?" Mr. Priest says, getting closer. He's holding a kitchen knife. Dirk scrambles away from him, across the bed. 

“Stay away from me.” Dirk says, feeling the edge of the bed under his hands. It feels like the end of the line, even if it's just the end of the bed.

He pouts, mockingly, and Dirk feels his breath quicken. He hopes if he doesn't get out of this, at least Ken and Todd get away. He wants to get away. “Don't be rude, Svlad. After all, you made quite a mess, downstairs.”

“Don't touch me-!” Dirk begins to shout, and that's when Mr Priest strikes him, with the hand not holding the kitchen knife, and Dirk’s head hits the wooden headboard. He’s so shocked he doesn't move for a few moments. There is blood on the side of his face now. He hit the headboard so hard the skin broke.

That's all the time Mr Priest needs, apparently, because then he’s dropping the knife on the ground, and his hands are around Dirk’s wrists, pinning them to the mattress.

~

Her hands trace down Farah’s wrists, up on the pillow below her head. They’re there because Tina pulled them off of the back of her singlet, tangling their fingers together in wonder.

She takes the time to trace the veins with her fingers. She doesn’t know where to touch her or how to touch her or how to stop touching her or anything. 

Tina kisses the edge of her jaw, wondering what to do, her hands trailing down to Farah’s elbows.

~

"We have to do something!" Ken hisses. Todd is frozen. Todd can't stop staring. He needs to stop staring. _He needs to do something._ _  
_  
The view of the bedroom through the crack in the closet doors is only enough to show him this man staring down at Dirk like a confident predator. 

Dirk looks dazed, and Todd can only imagine that’s because of the way the man hit his head into the headboard. Blood is trickling down his face.

_He can't keep staring._

~ 

Farah can't focus on anything but Tina - Tina's hand creeping up her sides underneath her t-shirt, Tina's lips and teeth on her neck, Tina using her knee to separate Farah's legs. It’s all too much and yet not enough all at the same time and it’s so hard to tell if she wants less or more, if she wants to forget or remember, if she wants to rush or savour.

~

They need to do something! Ken is sure of this, staring through the new gap in the closet doors. The guy is dragging Dirk off the bed with a hand over his fucking mouth over to a chair across the room! Why isn't anyone doing something? Why isn't _Ken_ doing anything? Why can't he make himself move to help Dirk?

Dirk is so helpless, practically a rag doll, looking panicked but almost completely out of it.

Why can't he make himself move when this _fucking weirdo_ is shoving a handkerchief in Dirk's mouth and fucking tying him up-

~  
  
Tina can't believe this. After all this time, after everything they've been through together, and Farah is letting her touch her like this. She never thought it could happen. She never thought Farah would let her trail her mouth down her skin until she was situated between her thighs.

And yet, she’s here, tugging Farah’s shorts down, trying not to go too fast and forget a detail about this moment, encasing them softly like a bubble.

~  
  
Bart has to do something. She can't make herself move.  
  
She can hear Dirk's muffled screaming, she can hear the guy - Mr Priest, Dirk had said - she can hear his boots scuffing against the floorboards. He stops down and picks up the knife he dropped on the ground. Dirk screams louder after a second and a sickening _snick_ sound. She assumes he cut Dirk.

The knife clatters to the floor, again, and he crosses to the bedside table, rummaging through it for a second. Then, there's the comical sound of pictures being taken, and Bart sees polaroids hitting the floor. This sick fuck is taking pictures of Dirk.

She's got the means, she's got the motive, she's got to do _something-_  
  
~  
  
Farah arches into the touch, a gasp rattling out of her throat as her fingers curl into Tina's hair.  
  
~  
  
Mr Priest gasps, his eyes widening in horror as a hand curls around his throat and draws a blade, slick with his blood, through his skin. The blood that floods from this cut covers Dirk as it falls and he can't help but scream louder into the dirty handkerchief in his mouth.  
  
Mr Priest stumbles backwards, dropping the camera and the knife he was using on Dirk, and turns to find Bart, her hand and the knife she holds covered in his red, red blood. She looks detachedly shocked, as if she can't believe she did it, but is not in the moment, at all.  
  
He stumbles further, grasping at the ragged remains of his throat, more blood splattering over his hand and onto the floor. Mr Priest slips. Mr Priest falls. And goes still.  
  
The blood does not stop coming out of his throat. It spreads out below his head like a repulsive, brackish halo. Dirk does not stop screaming.  
  
Bart continues to stare at the body. Then she falls to her knees and vomits on the floorboards.  
  
Ken and Todd leap out of the closet, Ken immediately grabbing hold of Bart's biceps and pulling her from the room. Todd drops to his knees in front of Dirk, looking pale and horrified but determined. He pulls the handkerchief from Dirk's mouth and moves to stroke his cheek. He does not seem to care that there's is a thin film of blood layering Dirk like fucking oil, he just seems focused on calming him down.  
  
"It's okay, you're okay, I promise." Todd whispers and unties Dirk, letting him collapse into his arms upon his release, sobbing in terror.  
  
The cut on Dirk's arm stings like hell. He can't stop heaving loud sobs out of his mouth, with a throat that feels raw. He doesn't stop holding Todd like he'll slip away at any moment. Everything is too large and too much and he needs this.  
  
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry." Todd whispers, his voice coloured with shame and guilt. "You're okay. You're gonna be okay, I promise. Okay? We're gonna get you all cleaned up, and we're gonna get you out of here, okay?"

Dirk can’t think, can’t breathe, can’t do anything but kneel there and hold onto Todd like he’s the only thing keeping him alive, right now. He catches a glimpse of Mr Priest’s body over Todd’s shoulder and shudders with his whole body, sobbing louder than before. The whole situation is weighing on him like a anvil on his chest, and the fact that he’s now dead…

~ 

Farah pants as she comes down from her high, a thin layer of sweat covering her. Tina softly kisses her thigh. Her hands are still in Tina’s hair, the fingernails scraping her scalp, lightly.

“Come up here.” Farah whispers and Tina obeys, crawling up her body and kissing her again, sighing a little as Farah fits her hands past the waistband of her boxers.

* * *

**Part Two: Flight**

* * *

 

Dirk faints against his shoulder. Todd is left, crouching on the floor of the room where a girl he just met murdered someone, holding Dirk and all his dead weight, probably getting a lot of blood on his clothes.

“Fuck,” he mutters, pushing back the shocked tears that so desperately want to fall from his eyes, right now. He really just wants to cry and go hug his mom, but now he's pretty much an accomplice to murder, so he's pretty much dead to the world, in that sense. Todd holds Dirk under his shoulders and gets to the stairs before he encounters the problem of how in hell he's going to get Dirk down the stairs.

“Fuck.” He says, again, and sits Dirk down against the railing, on the landing. He can hear Ken talking quickly in a hushed voice to Bart, downstairs. He looks at the blood on his hands. The cut on Dirk’s shoulder is slowly spilling blood down his blue t-shirt. There's so much blood. It's everywhere.

And someone's going to notice something off, soon, and they're going to find them all, covered in blood, with a body. They need to call the police or clean up and get out of here. Calling the police would mean they would have to admit to breaking into his house and probably getting jail time for killing him, so that's kind of out of the question.

Which means they need to clean up, and do it fast. 

Todd swallows, heavily, and taps Dirk on the cheek, trying to make him wake up. There's too much for them to do without Dirk cleaning himself up. And that's a priority.

“C’mon, c’mon.” He mutters, and runs a hand through his hair, nevermind he's probably getting blood in it. It was bound to happen, anyway. “Dirk? Dirk, can you hear me? Dirk, you need to wake up, now. You can rest once we get out of here.” 

Dirk comes to, violently, jerking against the railing, and immediately grabbing Todd by the front of his t-shirt. He looks terrified. Todd cannot deal with this.

“Hey, hey buddy.” He stammers out, patting Dirk’s shoulder and wincing at the fresh blood his palm is suddenly covered in. “It's okay, okay? We’re gonna get you all cleaned up and then we’ll get out of here. Okay?”

“Todd,” Dirk says, in a broken voice, eyes filling with tears, “he-” 

“I know.” Todd interrupts, not wanting to hear Dirk say those words. Todd was there. He knows. “I'm sorry, I shouldn't have made you stay there.”

“He wanted to - he _tried_ to-” His hands tighten in the front of Todd's shirt.

“Dirk. Please.” Todd says, covering Dirk’s hands with his own, prying them, gently from his shirt. “We don't have a lot of time.” 

“Okay.” Dirk says, leaning back against the railing like he's finally going, fully, into shock. 

“We don't know if he's going to have visitors tomorrow or something,” Todd continues, softly, hearing Ken go quiet, downstairs, “and no one can know we were here.”

“Okay.” Dirk repeats.

“C’mon.” Todd says, getting to his feet, and grabbing hold of Dirk’s hands. “We’ll get you into the shower. Let’s go.”

~

Ken feels cold. He doesn’t know how to feel, too in shock from recent events to - _recent events, huh, Adams? How fucking weak. A man was_ murdered _right in front of you, why the_ fuck _aren’t you running?_ \- feel anything else. 

The corner of Bart’s mouth still has bits of vomit on it. She is white as a sheet, and won’t stop staring at the floor, from where he sat her down, against the couch, on the rug. 

(Why _isn’t_ he running?) 

“Bart?” He says, softly. He’s kneeling, in front of her, on the carpet, right beside where Todd dropped his phone. It's still on, Ken can tell. “Bart, can you look at me?”

She does. She looks like a deer in the headlights. He feels as if she’s staring into his soul. She shrinks back. “‘m sorry.” Bart murmurs, looking back down at the rug. 

“It’s okay.” _It’s really not._ “We’re all okay. Everything’s going to be okay. We’ve just gotta sort all this out and we’ll all be okay. Can you work with me, on this?” 

Bart looks up again, a crease in her forehead, worry in her eyes. “Why haven’ ya run, yet?” She asks, and her voice breaks. She’s still holding the knife. Why is she still holding the knife? The splatters of blood, higher up on her arm, are already drying, going brownish. Ken really wants to hurl at the sight of it.

He ignores the feeling in favour of replying, “What?”

“Aren’t ya scared?” Bart demands.

“Scared?” Ken repeats, wondering why the word leaves a thin layer of film over his tongue, making him feel sick.

“Yeah.” She agrees.

“Sure, I’m scared. But I can’t just leave you here.” He wishes he’d left earlier. Why did he think this could ever be anything but bad? Why did he follow her into the house? 

“Ya won’ leave?” Bart asks, looking almost desperate. He feels something warm in his chest for her. _As if whenever you blink you can’t still see the way she slit that man’s throat._  

“Not until we’re done.” He tells her, with as much truth in his tone as he can manage. 

“When will we ‘be done’?”

“When we’re safe.” 

“When we’re safe.” Bart repeats to herself, looking down at the floor. At her ratty converse that now have blood on them. Her overalls do, too. So does her face. It’s in her hair and on her t-shirt and under her fingernails. It’s on him too. They’re gonna need to burn these clothes.

“C’mon.” Ken says, getting to his feet and holding out his hand. The less bloody hand, the one not holding the knife, reaches out to grab it, and she hauls herself to her feet. He suddenly can’t stop wondering why she was under the bed, in the first place. Why was she in the room? “Let’s get you some water and we’ll think of what to do next.”

~

She drops the knife in the sink, she washes her hands with soap, watching the blood swirl into the drain in the stainless steel tub. She can't breath evenly. She can't-

Bart washes her hands the way Wilson always said she should. Palms first, back second, between her fingers, up around her thumbs, cupping her fingertips in each hand like a loose fist and rubbing. It works surprisingly well. 

There’s a nail brush beside the plug - god knows why, this guy was apparently _insane_ \- so she uses that, too. Her hands looks clean, now. Ken stares at her from across the room. When he sees her staring back, he turns around, quickly, and gets a glass down from the cupboard.

“Are you okay?” He asks.

“Huh?” Bart replies, scrubbing up her arm with cold water and the rough side of a sponge. The water goes pink. As does her skin. It stings a bit.

Ken sighs, a little shakily, and sets the glass down beside her. “I just mean because you puked up there.” Bart considers this and stops washing herself up in the basin to fill up the glass.

“Oh, yeah, I was jus’ shocked or somethin’.” She explains away, not liking how weak she felt in that moment, not liking _any of this_ at all. “I - I wasn’ expectin’ it.”

“Oh.” Ken says.

“Yeah.” Bart agrees, raising the glass to her mouth and gulping it down. There’s a smudge of blood on the rim of the glass now. This stuff is _everywhere_. She’s going to need to shower to be rid of it all. She didn’t know that blood could be this messy.

“Bart, what are we gonna do?” This time Ken sounds helpless. Bart turns the tap back on and starts to clean her other arm. It seems to have sunk into her very pores.

“Well, I jus’ murdered someone.” She says, slowly, beginning to dislike the sting of the sponge on her skin. She keeps scrubbing, anyway. “So, I think we should clean up, get rid o’ ‘is body, an’ then run away. Thoughts?”

Ken sighs, deeply, leaning heavily on the counter. “Well, it's not like there's anyone here to miss me.” He says, laughing even though there’s no humour behind it. “I can go for that. What about the other two?”

“Dirk was already comin’ with me. Todd should be easy ta sway.” Bart shrugs and flips the tap off, finally giving in to her body’s begs for the pain to stop. “We should get out o’ ‘ere b’fore the sun rises.”

“Why?” He asks.

“Dunno.” She says, honestly, turning away from the sink. The smudge of blood on the glass is almost sneering at her. “Jus’ feels better than stayin’ all o’ next day, or leavin’ in the middle o’ the day, tomorrow.”

“Okay.” Ken agrees, nodding, slowly.

There’s footsteps on the stairs and then Todd enters. “Oh, hey.” He says, in vaguely dazed greeting. 

Ken snorts, obviously using comedy to feed his adrenaline. “That's so casual of you.” he comments. 

“Yeah, well, I'm in shock, so shut the fuck up. I put Dirk in the bathroom to clean up.” Todd replies and then sighs, leaning back on the fridge. He rubs the bridge of his nose with his index finger and thumb. He looks drained. “What's the plan? I'm assuming there's a plan. _Is_ there a plan?”

“The plan is clean up as much as possible an’ run as far away as possible.” Bart tells him, and hates how he flinches at the sound of her voice.

“What about the car?” He asks, through gritted teeth.

“What _about_ it?” She says. It’s a good question. She honestly hadn’t thought about it. She hadn’t thought about anything after getting out of this house.

“Dorian’s gonna report it missing.” Todd points out. “We’ve gotta get rid of it.” 

“But it’s our getaway car.” Bart retorts. “Ya wanna _walk_ outta our crime scene?” 

“What if we drive it part way out of town and set it on fire?” Ken suggests, tapping his lips with a few fingers.

“Great. I can get behind that.” Todd says to Ken and then gives Bart a quick once-over. “Bart, you should probably shower after Dirk.”

“I saw a fuckload of bleach in this guy’s supply closet.” Ken mutters to himself as Bart pushes herself off the counter and pads through the doorway to the entryway. 

“Awesome.” Bart says, and climbs the stairs, leaving behind that smudge of blood and all it entails.

~ 

Dirk shuts the bathroom door and is immediately faced with his reflection which is nothing less than horrifying. He kind of stops breathing. There's blood all over him. There's blood running down his face from where he hit the headboard, and there's blood running down his arm from where he got cut, and there's blood all down from his nose to his hips from where Mr Priest’s blood fell onto him. 

“Dirk?” Todd says through the door. Dirk swallows the lump in his throat.

“Fine. Thanks, Todd.” The words don't sound right, but he lets them go. Todd will think he's fine, and that's what's best, here. He hears Todd sigh, outside the door, and walk down the stairs. Todd’s right. He should clean up and they can work out the next best move. His shirt comes off, first, smearing blood from his face and his shirt into his hair. He drops it into the sink with a wet sounding _slop._

Dirk can see the injury to his shoulder clearly, now. It's rather small, but blood is trickling from it, steadily. Dirk licks his lips and crosses over to the toilet to grab a wad of toilet paper. The blood drenches it immediately, but it's at least a little comforting that he can do that.

His pants are still a bit damp from the swimming pool, and he doesn't even care until he's running his hands along the jeans and finds a bump in his back pocket. _His phone._

Dirk hurriedly pulls the phone out of his pocket and attempts to turn it on to no avail. It's dead. He feels tears pool in his eyes. He's never really wished to call his foster father before. But right now, he'd give anything. He needs a sense of comfort. 

He wishes his mother were alive, that that awful car crash when he was nine had never happened and he'd never wished to run away in the first place. He drops his phone in the sink, on top of his blood stained blue t-shirt. It's useless now.

He pulls his shoes off. They're soaked in blood. So are the knees of his jeans. Those come off wetly. Everything goes in the sink, except his underwear. He can replace everything, but he won't wear any other underwear until he can buy more. He may have to wear clothes out of this man's closet, but not his underwear.

Dirk lays his briefs across the lid of the toilet and steps into the shower, ready for that gritty, clasping feeling of the blood drying on him to be gone. 

He hates this, he hates this, _he hates this._  

The water is scalding, at first, but at least it wakes him up out of his stupor. He has left school, broken into someone’s house, been present to their murder, and what’s he doing? Standing in the shower, crying because the life he knew is over. Bart killed him, and, sure, he was hurting Dirk, and probably planned to hurt him more, but they still broke into his house. There’s still serious repercussions for such a petty crime.

Dirk’s watched enough crime shows. He knows the only answer to this, to escape as unscathed as possible, is to run.

That doesn’t mean that he wants to.

Dirk scrubs the blood from his skin, scrubs and rinses until his skin feels raw and stings at the slightest touch. The cut at his shoulder protests loudly, and so does his head. Dirk scrubs the blood from them, as well.

Once out of the shower, he towels himself off and puts on his briefs. Raiding the medicine cabinet is all to easy, dabbing at the shallow cut and covering it up with a bandage. It’s the only thing he can think to do, and since it’s stopped bleeding it seems like the best course of action. Dirk’s mind wanders as he does this. He should at least be able to say goodbye, right? What’s stopping him?

He never liked Riggins so much, never loved him in the slightest, much less loved him like he loved his mother, but this just feels like another thieving car crash, like the world can’t wait to take everything else from him. Like the world is just waiting for him to think he’s safe, so it can pull the rug out from under him, again.

He opens the door and finds himself face to face with Bart. She looks a little surprised, but quickly pushes past him and shuts the door. Dirk is left alone, on the landing.

She did this, not him. He shouldn’t have to be restricted because of what she did. 

Dirk descends the stairs, as quietly as possible, and creeps into the sitting room where Todd’s shitty, old iPhone is lying on the floor, lit up, probably from where he dropped it when he and Ken saw Mr Priest-

Dirk picks up the phone and dials in the number that he knows by heart but never calls. It rings. It rings too many times. 

An automated voice begins to speak after an aborted ring. _“You have reached the voicemail of-”_  

“Scott Riggins.”

_“Please leave a message after the tone, and try again later.”_

Dirk swallows, thickly. “Scott...it's Svlad. Something bad’s happened, and I wanted to say I'm sorry. I'm okay, but I'm not coming home.” He doesn’t know why he called. He only knows he wanted comfort and while Scott had never given him any, to expect it from him, Dirk still trusted him to be the one to hold him tight while the world burnt down. “Don't worry about me.”

He hears footsteps in the hallway and then Todd yelling, “Dirk? Stop! Oh my god, stop! Ken, get him to stop!” 

The phone is ripped from his hand and hung up by Ken, who looks beyond frightened. Todd skids onto the carpet in front of him, grabbing him, none too gently, by the shoulders, panic in his eyes. 

“Who did you call?” He demands, and Dirk supposes it makes sense that he’s panicking. He must have assumed that Dirk panicked and called the police.

Ken stares at the number displayed on the phone. 

“Dirk, you have to tell me who you called.” Todd insists, one hand moving from his shoulder to his cheek. Todd’s skin is warm, and his eyes are wide. He looks frightened. He looks terrified. 

“My foster father.” Dirk croaks, and sits back on the carpet. Todd releases him and sits back on his heels. 

“Why?” Ken asks, clicking Todd’s phone off, and looking between the two of them with worry etched across his face.

“I got lost.” Dirk tells them.

“Lost?” Todd echoes.

Dirk inhales deeply, through his nose, and pushes back tears. Now is not the time. “I’m scared.” He says, through gritted teeth. His breath hitches. It’s so much harder to hold back tears when everything in him is begging him to cry.

“We’re all scared Dirk. But we can’t call our parents.” Todd sighs and looks up at KIen who nods. “They can’t know what we’ve done.”

“You mean what _she’s_ done.” Dirk says and Ken frowns.

“Dirk, we’re not going to the police, which makes this a group effort.” He says. He sounds tired and scared.

“I always hated group projects.” Todd mutters, helping Dirk to his feet.

~

Todd would like to say that the whole cleaning process passed in a blur, but it doesn't. He watches himself scrub the banisters, and spray down windows and door handles with a dull vividness.

Ken moves in the same way, minimising the area of destruction to the room upstairs. They wash up and put things away, stuffing the disposable evidence of their presence far down in the neighbour’s bins.

Bart showers, upstairs, and then comes down to help them clean up. She gets rid of the knife she left lying in the kitchen sink. The knife she used to kill that man. They don't ask her where she puts it. Todd knows he doesn't want to know, and can assume the same for Ken. They have faith she put it somewhere it won't be found. They stuff everything they need in the back of the car. And, soon enough, all that's left is the body. The body and the pool of blood it's lying in.

And pretty much everything else in that room. 

Todd wishes the blurred vividness would just let go of him, already. If there's anything he wants to forget, it's that he and Ken are about to try and get rid of the body. 

~

It's too heavy.

Ken’s sneakers are now slippery with blood, and he can't lift the body. 

Bart watches from her perch on the bed, as he and Todd try to pull the body out of the pool of blood, to no avail. “Wanna give us a hand?” He gasps at her, once he and Todd set their respective limbs back on the hardwood floor.

She raises an eyebrow, but hops off the bed to help. She seems less shaken than before, and Ken can only assume the shock is setting in. Bart doesn't say anything. Dirk lingers in the doorway. Ken doesn't expect him to help. He's had enough, tonight, plus his shoulder’s injured.

But even with Bart’s added strength, the man is too heavy to lift, and the three of them just stare at each other.

“We’re so gonna get caught.” Todd mutters, rubbing his face, looking panicked and resigned at the same time. He gets to his feet and walks away from the body, and then back again, leaving bloody footsteps in his wake. “We can't just leave the body here, like this. It's already going to look shady without a body in the master bedroom.”

“As long as we get rid of everything else, every piece of evidence tying us to this place, we should be okay.” Ken responds, rolling it over in his head. So much could go wrong. So much has already gone wrong. They just have to take this chance. It's not like they can get his body out of here with a fucking wheelbarrow, after all.

“Ken, we fucking killed somebody.” Todd says, sounding, quite solidly, on the edge of a panic attack. He gestures to the body on the ground. “We can't just leave him here.”

Ken stands and shrugs. “Well what do you suggest we do?” He asks, already allowing himself to accept that this is the best course of action. Maybe with Dirk’s help they could get him out of here, but there were too many variable about getting rid of the body once he was out of the room. Trails of blood, fingerprints, bruises.

The only thing they can do is leave him there.

Todd sags, as if coming to this same conclusion. “I don't know.” He says. Bart watches on in silent fascination. 

“Clean up the blood.” Dirk says, suddenly. Both Todd and Ken look to him, confusedly. “Leave the pictures around him. When they find him they'll know what he did.”

“But, Dirk,” Todd says, walking to him, blood squelching under his shoes, “then they'll know you were here.” 

“And I'll be long gone by then.” He waves the comment off, still looking phased out, but determined. “They have to know he wasn't a good man. That he deserved to die.” 

Ken nods, and turns to the final member of their unlikely troupe. “Bart?”

She looks at each of them in turn, looking away from Dirk quicker than anyone else. She shrugs. “Sounds fine.”

“I think I saw some bleach in the supply closet earlier.” Ken says to himself, already taking off his shoes, so as not to leave a trail of blood behind him. “Bart, Todd, strip the bed.”

~ 

Ken scrubs the floorboards around Osmund Priest’s body until there’s no sheen of his red, red blood left to wipe away. Bart watches from her spot on the stripped mattress, only wearing her underwear, her hair hanging wetly around her shoulders. 

The bloodied sheets went into the back of the car with Bart and Dirk’s clothes, and the rest of the evidence they needed to burn. Bart doesn’t know why Ken insists they clean up the blood. It’s not like lack of blood will change the fact that the man is dead as a fucking doornail.

Ken strips off his gloves and gives Bart a long look that she can’t decipher. She can’t decipher anything, right now. It’s all too floaty and surreal to even try to understand the events happening around her. She never thought she’d feel like this.

They didn’t want to know where she put the knife. They said to get rid of it, somewhere it wouldn’t be found, and to keep it to herself. The alert part of her brain screamed that she should keep it with her, because that knife would tie her to the scene. The tired part of her brain just wanted this to be over.

So Bart dropped it into the pool filter, and kept it to herself.

“We need to get you some clothes.” Ken says. “You _and_ Dirk. We can’t leave you both in your underwear.”

Bart nods. “‘Kay.” There’s not really much else she can say. For the first time in her life, Bart can honestly say she can’t see a way forward. She wonders if all of this would be different if her parents hadn’t died, if her rage and aggression hadn’t been channeled into the sick obsession she had with death. She wonders if things had been different would she have been in this house in the first place.

Ken gently lays down a button up shirt and some slacks that he pulled from the closet down on the bed next to her. “Put these on.” He says, softly, and then exits the room with the bucket of bloodied water and his gloves.

And it’s just Bart and the body and the clothes. His eyes are still open. Open and startled. He didn’t know she was under there. No one did. None of them knew what she was doing in the room. And they’d want to know, soon enough. They’d want to know why she was under the bed, and why she had a knife. 

Bart isn’t sure she knows how to answer the questions they’re sure to have.

She slips the clothes on, too big, too baggy, and looks down at Osmund Priest. That’s what Dirk had told them his name was. She leans down and closes his eyes, a sign that she’s sorry even though she knows she would kill him a thousand times over to keep him from doing what he was doing to Dirk. What he was _going_ to do to Dirk.

Bart feels a wave of rage, the overwhelming feeling she’d gotten, seconds before sliding out from under the bed, that she needed to do something. The only thing at stake, here, is that maybe no one will know what all this means, that they’ll take it the wrong way.

There’s sticky notes in the second drawer of the bedside table on the left side, and a pen in the first drawer. She scatters the pictures over his body, and leaves the sticky note on the floor beside him. She takes the sharpie with her. No use wasting it.

Downstairs, Dirk is finally dressed, and Todd and Ken have gathered up their belongings. “We goin’?” Bart asks them all, and takes her backpack from Ken. 

“Yep.” Todd agrees. 

“Everything sorted up there?” Ken asks.

She nods, pulling both straps over her shoulders. “They’ll know what he’s done.” They all nod to each other, turn off the lights and file out of the house, silently. It’s the middle of the night, after all.

The bloody clothes and sheets and other evidence are all in the back space, which means that they kind of have to pile up in the front seat. It’s not practical, or particularly comfortable, and it’s definitely breaking the law. Bart doesn’t care.

They drive an hour and a bit out of town, out of Seattle entirely, and once they feel adequately far enough away from the scene of the murder, they get out of the car, and light a fire in it with the lighter and various sticks they find.

They stand and watch it burn for a long while, and then, they start walking away. Bart sees the way the fire reflects in Todd’s hair and pretends she doesn’t miss it’s warm presence once they’re far enough away from it that its light doesn’t reach them, anymore.

~ 

Dirk doesn’t want to be walking. It’s dark, the clothes he’s wearing are itchy and aggravating the injury in his shoulder, he’s emotionally and physically drained and he’s waiting to wake up from this bizarre and horrifying dream so he can have the comfort of knowing a man is not dead because of him.

Of course, in the most alert part of his subconscious he knows this is real. He knows they need to get to a motel or at least a shaded place by the side of the road, to sleep, before they continue their getaway. Dirk’s not sure he can do it.

Eventually, though, there are lights on the horizon - artificial ones, but lights nonetheless - and Dirk allows a small amount of hope to rise in his chest that he may be able to sleep in a bed, tonight. They stop outside the first motel they find. 

“I have a bunch of cash on me.” Ken tells them, as he rifles through his bag, looking more and more frustrated as the seconds pass. “You know, if I could find my wallet.”

Todd huffs in annoyance and whips out a debit card. “You can pay me back later, I’ll pay.” He says and stalks into the motel, before returning, a few minutes later, with two room keys. “Ken, you can room with Bart, Dirk, you’re with me.”

The rooms are right beside each other, so at least there’s that. Dirk catches the edge of a glance from Bart with a glance of his own. She looks as drained as he feels. His skin crawls when he remembers the seamless way she’d snuck up behind Mr Priest and- 

No. He won’t think of it.

There’s one bed. Dirk volunteers to sleep on the floor but Todd says, “Don’t be dumb. After everything we’ve gone through, together, we can share a bed.” Somehow Dirk assumed Todd was a “no-homo” kind of guy. Todd slips into the bathroom and leaves Dirk alone with only two am television for company. 

Dirk lies down and pretends he’s at home, pretends he never felt that afraid for his life, never saw the life drain from a mans eyes. It doesn’t work. He lets his breathing shiver and shudder as tears squeeze from his eyes, clutching a pillow to his chest. He hopes Todd doesn’t notice, or if he does, he hopes he doesn’t care. 

He falls asleep before the bathroom door opens. 

~ 

Todd is completely losing his shit. He’s still a little fuzzy from the alcohol that managed to remain in his veins despite sweating most of it off while cleaning Osmund Priest’s house, but mostly his head is spinning, and his mind is telling him that he’s going to get arrested and he’ll get shanked in jail.

So, yeah, he’s totally having a breakdown in a motel bathroom in DuPont, Washington, at two in the morning, wondering how the hell he thought he could get away with this.

Todd finds himself wondering, through hiccuping sobs, whether his parents have noticed, yet. They noticed, almost immediately, when Amanda disappeared. His mother was shrieking that her bed was empty, her window opened, clutter knocked off her desk.

She called the police that minute, and suddenly the house was swarming with investigators. They suspected foul play, they suspected she'd been kidnapped. Posters went up, after a week. His parents made a public statement on TV, begging anyone to come forward if they knew something, begging Amanda to come home if she was able to. 

Todd never suspected anything dark, only when he was on the edge of sleep did he ever indulge in the idea that perhaps his sister had been taken from her bed and dragged away, only to be beaten or killed, left by the side of a road. Amanda didn't come back. 

It was two months after she disappeared, and his mother kept finding things missing from Amanda’s room. Certain t-shirts, certain photographs, certain chargers. His mother stopped thinking Amanda had been kidnapped. His mother believed Amanda ran away.

And then came the day that Todd checked the mail and found a postcard. Wish You Were Here! it proclaimed, and on the back was a message, a message clearly meant for Todd and Todd only. _Stop looking. I won't come back. You're better off without me._ The return address had been scribbled out, but Todd could see the indents on the other side of the postcard, could make out a fuzzy address. He shoved it in his pocket and kept his mouth shut. He never told his parents. He never told the private investigator. 

It's in his backpack. Todd always thought that one day he'd have the guts to get in a car and drive out to the fuzzy address. Until now, he’d never left Seattle, before. 

And now he’s got nowhere left to go. Maybe that was why Amanda left, too. Nowhere left to go, no one to turn to, too much in her head. So she just left, not a word to anyone. 

Todd stops crying a little after that thought crosses his mind. When he emerges out into his and Dirk’s motel room, Dirk’s already asleep. And honestly, he has the right idea.

~ 

Ken doesn’t understand how Bart can sound so calm when she says, “‘m jus’ gonna go wash up.” He knows she doesn’t need another shower. He knows she wants some privacy, and he knows he shouldn’t say anything. 

It doesn’t matter - not to Ken. He empties his backpack out onto the double bed and sifts through the trash that comes out in an attempt to find his wallet that’s miraculously disappeared. When he arrived at the house, it was in his jacket pocket, but quickly switched it to his jeans pocket when he thought he was going to get robbed by the drunk guys on the couch.

And once he was sure he wasn’t going to get robbed, and Todd was moping, dripping wet, on the couch, he put it in his backpack. He promptly kicked his backpack under the couch when he and Todd saw headlights in the driveway. The backpack was open at the top when he pulled it back out and left, later that night.

Which means there’s a good chance that his wallet is under the couch in the house they’d just fled, inevitably tying him to the scene, and the murder.

Ken experiences the first few minutes of an asthma attack before pulling his inhaler out of the front pocket of his backpack.

~

There's still flecks of blood on her skin the next morning. It's stuck under her fingernails. The woman behind the counter at the op shop they’re at notices and slips her a tampon, frowning sympathetically. 

Bart stuffs it in her back pocket and carries on, rathering that people think she's got her period than she's killed somebody.

They're trying to find things that fit and things that are so out of character that they won't be recognised. Change their appearances. They're on the run. After booking out, they stole a pickup truck from the motel parking lot and took off to the next town. By this time, someone will have found the wreck of the burning car and reported it, so they need to get far away, as soon as possible.

Bart is looking between a white button up shirt and a grey tank top when Ken clears his throat behind her. She turns. "What?"  
  
He silently holds out what looks to be a denim skirt on a hanger. She raises her eyebrows. "If ya think I'm gonna wear a skirt, ya've got another thin’ comin’." Bart informs him.

"It's not a skirt." Ken replies, and clears his throat again. Bart looks to the denim not-skirt, again, and frowns.

"Huh?" She says.

More awkward shuffling on his part. "It's a skort."

“‘Skort?’" Bart repeats, incredulously. This is as bad as ‘spork’ and every other word that’s two things all squished together. Just have one or the other, for fucks sake. The extent of human laziness will never cease to amaze her.

"It looks like a skirt but it's secretly shorts." He explains, and she gives it another look.

"Tha's so dumb." Bart deadpans, and he sags a bit, nodding, as if he understands.

"Sorry-" Ken begins, turning to put it back, and Bart grabs his wrist.

"I love it.” Bart interrupts, and watching a bewildered, strange kind of smile thin his lips. “Give it ‘ere.”

 (It doesn’t fit over her hips, but the thought counts, she reckons.) 

~

The truck-stop bathroom they use, that’s just outside of town, is surprisingly big enough to fit all of them. Bart hacks off a good ten centimeters off of her hair, until it hangs loosely around her jaw. She changes into her grey cargo pants and the tank top and button down and he almost doesn’t recognise her.

He guesses he was just used to her overalls and t-shirts.

Todd shortens his hair, and dyes it black, which looks a bit weird, but Dirk decides he’ll get used to it. The poncho jumper thing he bought is super ugly, and Dirk doesn’t think Todd would be caught dead in it, back home, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

Ken says he's gonna let his beard and his hair grow out. Considering that anyone looking for him, as unlikely as he seems to believe that it is, would be looking for a clean shaven guy, he won't really fit the picture. He puts on a red flannel over his white t-shirt. He says it makes him look inconspicuous, and Bart just snorts.

Dirk steals some of Todd’s dye, knowing his hair makes them stand out. The yellow jacket he bought from the op-shop probably doesn't help, but Dirk doesn't much care.

Once they're all dressed, their old clothes left in a dumpster and their chopped off hair washed down the drain, they pile back into the pickup truck they stole and keep driving.

~

They’re eating breakfast at a roadside diner. Ken is staring, contemplatively into his coffee, ignoring his toast and eggs as they’re smuggled away by Bart, having already finished her own breakfast. Dirk is enjoying a plate of waffles with cream and syrup, and Todd’s attempting to choke down the over-cooked bacon he was served, trying to remember what his bank balance was, the last time he checked. 

It was pretty alright, he thought, but the shitty motel was surprisingly expensive, so he has no idea how he’d going to pay for this. 

“Are ya gonna eat that?” Bart asks, through a mouthful of Ken’s scrambled eggs, pointing her butter knife at Todd’s bacon.

He shrugs and passes her his plate, which she stacks on her old one. At least _she’s_ eating. Even Dirk seems a little flattened by his waffles.

“Why tha long face?” Bart asks him, crunching the bacon, loudly. She cocks her head to the side, in an obvious effort to look more curious than menacing.

“I’m not sure how I’m going to pay for this.” Todd admits to her. She frowns.

“Huh?” Dirk breaks out of his staring contest with the syrup on his waffles to launch himself into the conversation. “Have we run out of money?”

He nods. “Or, at least, we’re very close to. Besides, once they realise I was at the crime scene they’ll track my payments, so it’s probably better that we don’t use my card.”

“Todd, if we can’t use your card, how are we supposed to pay for this?” Dirk whispers, conscious of who may be listening. “If they find out we couldn’t pay for this in the first place, we’ll get arrested!”

Bart looks at each of them, grimly. “We ‘ave ta dine an’ dash.” She proclaims, solemnly.

“In case it slipped your mind, that’s also illegal, Bart.” Todd comments, dismissively. 

“What other choice do we ‘ave?” Bart asks him, raising an eyebrow into her messy mop of red hair. 

“We could go for the pity route.” Ken murmurs.

“The pity route?” Dirk echoes, leaning in, intrigued. Todd groans, knowing he’s lost them. 

Ken nods. “The person paying dissolves into tears when the card is declined.” He explains. 

“I don’t think any of us can convincingly fake cry, Ken.” Todd mumbles into his hands.

Ken looks around the table and sighs when he realises Todd’s right. “...Okay, new idea. You guys ready for this? Bart, you’ve eaten most of our food-” 

“If you want it back, all you have to do is ask.” She says, harrumphing and putting a finger in her mouth. 

“No,” Ken says, pulling her hand away from her mouth and rolling his eyes, good naturedly at her mock-pout. “That’s not what I meant.” He looks around and then whips Todd’s poncho jumper off of the back of Todd’s chair. He folds it up and then holds it out to Bart. “Here, stuff this under your top.”

“Why?” She asks, looking between him and the bundle of fabric in her hands.

It dawns on Todd what Ken plans to do. He plants his face in his face, peeking through his fingers at the group, and groans, again. “Oh my god.” 

“Ken, this is never going to work.” Dirk hisses, looking around the rest of the oblivious diner-goers.

“Bart, when the waitress comes over to ask about the food, she’ll notice you ate most of it.” Ken says, pressing the bundle of fabric firmly into her hand. “You need to pretend to be pregnant.” 

She looks aghast. “Why me?” Bart frowns.

“Because none of the rest of us, so far as I know, have a uterus.” Ken elaborates, and then gives Todd and Dirk  look that says he honestly has no idea what will happen if this doesn’t work. Whatever, they managed to get away from a crime scene, last night. They can do anything, now.

“Fine.” Bart huffs, and stuffs the jumper under her top. It looks lumpy so Ken leans over and adjusts it until it looks at least a little like a pregnant belly. “But ‘ow is this s’posed ta ‘elp us out o’ this?” 

“After she walks away, you need to start complaining about being in pain, and then make a big fuss, like a big enough fuss for us to conceivably rush you to hospital.” Ken whispers, excitedly. “Whoever we leave at the table will frantically try to pay, but the card will keep getting declined, so eventually the waitress will let us go and we leave.”

Todd pinches the bridge of his nose, willing himself to black out and wake up in bed to find that this has all just been a strange, insane dream. “That’s so convoluted.” He mumbles.

“But it might just work.” Dirk says, seemingly agreeing with Ken.

“I _hate_ this.” Bart mumbles with her arms crossed high over her chest so thats he doesn’t disturb the substantial faux-baby bump. “Next time, one o’ ya ‘as ta be the pregnant lady.” 

“Fine, next time _I’ll_ be the pregnant lady.” Ken says and they quiet down when they notice a waitress wandering over.

“How’s the food?” Asks the waitress as she reaches their table. Todd holds his breath when she takes in Bart and the pile of plates in front of her. And the stretched material of her top. “Oh.”

“Yeah...” Bart drawls, eyes flicking over the rest of them, and reaching down to awkwardly pat her stomach. “I got a bit carried away. Sorry.”

“Oh,” says the waitress again, “it’s no problem. The food I mean. You just look a little young to be pregnant, is all.”

“Yeah.” Bart says again. “My ma weren’t too ‘appy ‘bout it, so I’m ‘ere.”

“Oh, you poor dear. Here.” The waitress - her name tag reading _Sammy_ \- rummages through the front pocket of her apron, emerging with a few ten dollar bills. Obviously her tips for the day. Todd gives Ken a look that he hopes reads _ABORT ABORT ABORT_. “To help you pay for things.”

“I couldn’t take ya money-” Bart begins, looking shocked, but Sammy holds up a hand, as if she doesn’t want to hear another word of it.

“You need it more than I do.” She says, and then turns to scan her eyes over the rest of them. “As for the rest of you - you’re all helping her out, are you?”

“Yeah…” Todd replies, glancing over at Ken, again, to gage his reaction to this unexpected turn of events. 

“Well, I’ll talk to my manager and see if we can’t get your meals on the house.” Sammy proclaims, and Todd watches the way Bart clutches the handful of money like it’s something precious. 

“Really?” Dirk asks, sounding genuinely surprised. 

“Of course, dear.” Sammy laughs. “You got somewhere to stay?” 

“Yep. We’re goin’ ta stay with my dad.” Bart lies. 

“Okay, then.” Sammy says, nodding resolutely. “Well, you just keep yourselves seated. I’ll go talk to my manager.”

As it turns out, her manager is high as a kite, and readily accepts their story before telling them it’s on the house, packing Dirk’s waffles up in a doggy bag, and sending them on their way. Bart looks so awkward as she pretends to be pregnant and needing help to climb into the car with Ken. 

“I can’t believe that fucking worked.” Todd comments once the diner is out of sight and they’re on the road, again. 

“I kinda feel bad fo’ trickin’ ‘er.” Bart sighs, pulling Todd’s poncho jumper out from under her top and tossing it into the front seat. “That was ridiculously easy.” 

“Who cares?” Ken says, excitedly, counting through the bills Sammy gave Bart. “We got away with it!”

Todd thinks he misjudged Ken’s wildside.

~

They don’t book into a motel with the money from Sammy, and they don’t park in some truckstop. They don’t want to risk the car being recognised as one that was stolen.

So when it gets dark, they pull off the road and resolve to take turns sleeping in the car. 

Ken and Dirk are lying on the bonnet of the car, looking up at the stars. “Where are we even going?” Dirk asks, and Ken exhales.

“I just figured we’d keep running.” He replies, voicing the thought that had been stuck at the forefront of his mind ever since Sammy asked if they had a place to stay. 

“What if they put our faces on TV and people recognise us?” Dirk asks, and Ken will be honest, it’s a good question. A good question that he doesn’t have the answer to. 

“Then we’ll hide.” Ken says, as firmly as he can, hoping Dirk will understand that he has no clue what’s happening. “For now, I think our priority is getting as far away as possible.

It’s quiet, for a moment. And then Dirk sits up and says, “Do you think we’ll ever be free of this?”

“Probably not.” He answers, evenly. “But, then again, do we even deserve to be?”

~

“I know where we can go.” Todd says, and startles her out of her brooding silence. 

“Oh, yeah?” She asks, pressing her tongue to their underside of one of her molars. She knows he's afraid of her, but not as afraid as Dirk. After all, he's sitting in an empty car with her. 

Todd swallows, and digs through his backpack until he emerges victorious, holding a battered postcard. “My sister ran away from home about three years ago. For a while everyone thought she’d been kidnapped, but we found enough clothes and chargers and things that it became obvious she left by herself.” Bart raises an eyebrow, silently asking what this is supposed to mean to her. Of course she’d heard about Amanda Brotzman’s kidnapping, and seen the TV broadcasts begging people to come forward with information on her whereabouts. “She sent me a postcard telling me not to look for her, but she scribbled out the return address in such a way that I can read it through the other side of the postcard.”

“So, ya know where she is, then?” Bart asks, suddenly interested. A safe haven, if Amanda’s willing to share it. A hideout. “Why din't ya run away b’fore now?”

He shrugs, uncomfortably, from the front seat. She leans her head against the glass of the backseat window behind her. They’re lying down in such a way that she can see his face over the lip of the front bench. He’s lying on the passenger side. “Didn't have the guts.” Todd says.

“Figures.” Bart snorts, and then quietens, expression slipping into something more neutral, more sad. “Would she even let us in?” This is said at a whisper. 

“I have no idea,” Todd admits, “but I reckon it's worth a shot, right?” 

“Sure.” She agrees, knocking him in the shoulder, lightly, with her fist. “S’not like we’ve got anywhere else ta go.” 

~

The next morning, after they’ve all had a fitful turn at sleep and eaten a filling breakfast at the local roadside McDonalds, they get back on the road and Ken frowns at the fuel gauge. “We’re running out of gas.” He announces.

“How are we gonna get down to Queets on an empty tank?” Todd says, holding the remains of the money Sammy gave them. There’s barely enough to pay for a third of a tank.

“We could just fill the tank up and then drive away without paying?” Ken suggests, since he’s apparently their schemer.

“We’d have to do it quickly, wouldn’t we?” Dirk says and everyone turns to look at him, even Ken, who only glances over his shoulder for a split second before putting his eyes back on the road. “Why are you all looking at me?” 

Todd shrugs. “Didn’t you win that Rubik’s Cube competition last year?” he asks, casually. “Fastest time?”

Dirk gapes, slightly, at him, before shutting his mouth, quickly, composing himself. “While I’m astounded you even remember there was a Rubik’s Cube competition last year, much less that I won it,” he says, “why does that mean I’ll be able to refill our tank and get away with not paying for it?”

“Don’t know.” Todd tells him, smiling, a bit. Bart snorts, and rolls her eyes, beside Dirk, in the backseat. “I guess I just didn’t want to be even more implicated than usual in the crimes we’ve been steadily committing lately.”

“Fine.” Dirk says, grimly, and Todd leans over the edge of the front seat. “Let’s rock paper scissors, you and me, over who has to commit the crime today.” 

Ken frowns at them in the rearview mirror. “Technically we’d all be committing it-” He begins.

“I mean directly, Ken.” Dirk interrupts him and holds up a hand. Bart watches them intently as they go best of three (Todd losing to Dirk with paper against his scissors, Dirk losing to Todd with Scissors against his Rock, and then again with the same combination) leaving Dirk dismayed at having to steal gas. 

“I’m not sure I feel comfortable with this.” Dirk mutters.

“I don’t think any of us are,” Todd replies, sympathetically, “it’s just what we have to do.” 

“Gas station coming up,” Ken warns them, nodding to their right. There are two gas stations, one on each side of the road. One advertises for Dengdamor Fuel, with low prices on snacks and discounts on diesel fuel when you buy four packets of Doritos. The other advertises for Trost Station, selling fifty cent slushies and affordable prices on all gas.

Ken turns into the driveway for Dengdamor Fuel and Dirk swallows back the bile in his throat, afraid that if he vomits it'll just attract more attention. He hops out of the car once they've parked and heads right over to the pump, casting a nervous look at the storefront where a stern looking lady is eyeing them from the counter.

Then he encounters obstacle that they had previously overlooked. Dirk had never put gas in a car before. He glances between the three gas pumps, frantically, for a second before Todd opens the back door and indicates to the right one.

It's a bit heavier than Dirk expected. He’s sure that faint thumping noise he's hearing is Ken, hitting his head on the steering wheel. Eventually he gets the pump in the right place and watches the numbers go up on the machine the pump is attached to. 

“How much gas did we want?” Dirk asks, over his shoulder. 

“I should hope quite a lot.” Says a voice that Dirk doesn't recognise, and Dirk twists where he stands, coming face to face with the stern looking woman from behind the counter, inside. She has her hands on her hips, and looks like she has him cornered.

That twisty feeling in his gut every time he thinks of Mr Priest returns when he takes in her face, and he tries to muster a cheerful smile. It falls flat. Todd, head stuck through the gap from his open door, looks between them with a mildly panicked look on his face. 

“Um…” Dirk says, and the woman takes the pump from his hand, waiting until it locks and putting it back. That's a full tank. That's more money than they didn't have in the first place.

She smiles, but Dirk can tell there's something off. “You can come and pay inside.” Dirk shoots Todd a panicked look, but Todd just goes white and slams the door shut, effectively leaving Dirk alone. Dirk wonders if they'll drive off without him. “It's a bit cold out, today.”

She leads him inside by the crook of his elbow, but her grip is iron clad. Dirk is totally, royally fucked.

~

“Oh my god.” Todd says, and Ken slams his head into the steering wheel, again. “Oh fuck. Oh god, we’re so fucked.”

“Maybe she's nice?” Bart suggests, but even her tone is shaky. She's staring out her window at the storefront, through which they can see very little of what's going on inside. 

“I'm not sure she is.” Todd replies, as calmly as he can manage, trying to calm his nerves. This is all going to hell in a handbasket and there's very little that Todd can do to stop that. “Ken, pass me Dirk’s jacket.”

The yellow monstrosity is lying in the footwell of the passenger seat, and Ken only struggles fractionally in passing it to Todd. He worries his lip between his teeth. “What are you going to do?”

Todd slips one arm into its sleeve and furrows his brow. “Something a little crazy.” He admits, and gets out of the car. He runs with his back bent, ducking below the window, towards the building, hoping the lady who dragged Dirk inside doesn't see him. He peeks through the window once he's there and sees the lady smirking at Dirk as if he's already being hauled off by police. There's a boy about Todd’s age, behind her, looking conflicted.

Dirk is struggling to get away from her, yelling something that Todd can't hear, and Todd decides it's time to make his entrance.

He barrels into the building, with one arm stuffed into the inside pocket of his jacket, making it look like he has an automatic weapon hidden inside it. He hopes. “Hands up, ma’am.” He says, pointing his arm directly at her.

She looks shocked for a moment. And then the shock fades and she just looks annoyed. “Kid, I know when I'm looking at a fraud, and you don't have a gun.” Dirk looks relieved to see him.

“Let my friend go and you'll never have to know.” He says in what he hopes is a compromising voice. “We’re on a bit of a tight schedule and we’d hate to inconvenience you any further.”

“Sure.” She shrugs, still holding Dirk’s arm in a tight grip. “Pay me the money for your fuel and I'll let him go.” 

Dirk pushes a hand against her face to make her move away. “Just leave without me!” He yells at Todd, and Todd’s faith that Dirk could ever get away from this lady shrinks even more.

“No.” Todd tells him and refocuses his fake weapon on the lady. The boy behind her looks uneasy.

“Mom,” he says, tapping her on the shoulder and glancing between Dirk and Todd, “are you really-?” 

“Shut up, Silas!” She yells, twisting to face him. Silas shrinks back against the counter. “How many times do I have to-?”

It's at this moment that Todd rushes her, shoving her away from Dirk and towards the back of the room. There's an open door behind her, so he shoves her inside and closes the door. Silas immediately shoves him out of the way, using a key on the lanyard around his neck to lock the door.

Todd steps back, panting to stare at Silas. “Why did you do that?” He asks.

Silas bites his lip again. “I've been planning to run away from her for a while. You guys have just finally given me the courage.” Todd and Dirk exchange a mildly shocked look as Silas hurried to the register and uses a different key to open it. “Here, help me split up the money in the register; I need to call my boyfriend and tell him we’re leaving.” 

“Uh, good for you?” Dirk asks, glancing at the thumping door, behind which Silas’s mother is raging and yelling. 

“Thanks.” Silas responds, and grins at them.

It doesn't take them long to divide up the money and steal what snacks they want. Silas’s boyfriend arrives minutes before Dirk and Todd leave, in a stylish convertible. Silas and his pink-haired boyfriend wave to them as they drive off into the distance.

“That was weird,” Todd says, handing Dirk back his coat.

“Yep,” Dirk agrees, pulling it on.

~

They don’t talk much after that (well, apart from Bart saying, “Guess ya implicated yaself in that one, didn’ ya, Todd?” before Todd tossed the plastic bag of stolen cash register money at her head).

Ken drives a few backroads to make sure they’re less conspicuous, and they eventually stop off in Quinalt for the night. It’s just off the Quinalt river, which, according to google maps, flows from a similar place as the Queets river. Ken decides to take this as a good thing. 

He goes in, this time, and books a single room with two double beds, figuring they’ll work it out when they get there.

No one in the car speaks as they pull into the motel parking lot and climb the stairs to the room. Ken turns on all the lamps and the TV, dumps their stuff on the couch and fishes out a fine amount of ten dollar bills from the plastic bag of stolen money, before grabbing Todd’s arm and saying they need to grab some snacks from the vending machines, downstairs.

Todd doesn’t protest, because he’s obviously feeling the same tension between Bart and Dirk that Ken is, and figures the best way for them to work it out is to be alone together, for a bit. 

~

The door closes. Neither of them say a word. Bart glances at Dirk, uneasily, feeling nervous over how stony his face has become. She wishes Ken and Todd were back, already, so that they could stop whatever is about to come out of Dirk’s mouth.

Dirk looks like he doesn’t want an audience.

“Why were you under the bed?” He asks, and Bart flinches. She feels numbly frightened, as she did in the immediate aftermath of killing Mr Priest. The roadtrip had mellowed her out, but now she’s fallen again. No crooked smile, no jarring laugh.

She doesn’t answer.

“Bart, why were you hiding under the bed, with a knife?” No answer. He’s jabbed her where it hurts, where she’s injured. “Tell me, please.” 

Bart just swallows, deeply and stares ahead, picking at her nails. 

“Why can’t you tell me?” 

“‘Cause it’ll ruin ev’rythin’.” She rasps, looking down at her hands. “I’ve already ruined ruined ev’rythin’. Ya know that. But ya won’t want me ‘ere if ya know why I was there. An’ I’ve got nowhere else ta go.” 

He pauses, and Bart looks up at him. “Were you as bad as Mr Priest?” Dirk asks her. It’s like the sun has gone behind a cloud and left her cold and covered in goosebumps. 

“No.” Bart says to him, picking at her fingernails. “I was better’n him, ‘cause I didn’t actually _do it_.”

“But you were going to.” He counters, standing up. He’s quite lanky; it’s like he unfolds from the bed, beginning to pace. 

“It’s diff’rent.” She says, though she knows it’s not. 

He scoffs. “It’s only different because you didn’t get the chance.”

“Tha’s not true.” Yes it is. Even Bart knows that. He’s got her backed into a corner, up against the wall, and Bart has nowhere left to run, now that he knows the truth. He keeps walking past the lamp, making the light flicker as his body blocks the light when he passes. Bart feels her heartbeat pick up, uncomfortably.

“Really?” Dirk demands and Bart jumps. The last time she’d felt like this, before she killed Priest, was when she’d rode her bike into a fence as a kid and flipped over the handlebars. No one saw it happen. No one saw her go over. A piece of metal got stuck in her leg, and she sat there, crying, for an hour or so before she finally, wobbling, got to her feet and walked her bike home, trailing blood on the road. The idea of being alone scared her then, and it scares her now. “So if he hadn’t pulled up when you were standing in my room with a hunting knife, you wouldn’t have slit my throat?” 

“I changed my mind.” Bart tells him, desperately, watching him stop in his tracks. “An’ then I couldn’ leave-” 

“Yes, but you were still going to do it!” He yells, and Bart can hear the palpable fear in his voice, now. “You still thought about it, and still walked into my room with the intention of killing me!”

“Dirk-” She tries, reaching out to him, and watching, in dismay, as he jerks back from her, looking terrified. He knows what she’s capable of, now, he knows what she wanted to do - what she was _going_ to do - why wouldn't he be terrified? 

“Don’t touch me.” Dirk whispers, pale and scared, backlit by the lamp, the ambient dialogue from the late night sitcom on TV fading away. “When they come back tell them I needed some time alone.” 

And, with that, he leaves. The door slams behind him. She flinches even though she knows it’s coming. 

Bart sits there, on the end of the double bed, for a few minutes until Ken and Todd re enter, holding many packets of chips, iced teas, and chocolate bars in their arms. They frown when they notice Dirk missing.

“Where’s Dirk?” Todd asks, and Bart cannot mistake the tremor in his voice, as if she killed him, too, and stuffed him under one of the beds. 

“He went ta clear ‘is head.” Bart replies, numbly. “Next time, ya shouldn’ leave ‘im alone with me. Ya never know when ‘m gonna pull out ‘nother knife.”

Todd goes all pale and drops the snacks on the adjacent bed before exiting the hotel room, quickly. Bart feels as though she’s divided the pack. It’s clear where Todd’s loyalties lie. And it’s clear where Ken’s lie, too.

He sits down beside her, turning up the episode of _Frasier_. “Chips?” He asks, softly, and she takes them from his hand.

~ 

She was going to kill him. 

If Priest had been a minute or two later than he was Dirk could be dead, right now. 

Bart was going to kill him.

Someone knocks on the car window and Dirk jumps. It's just Todd, backlit by the old lamps outside the motel. Todd gestures to the lock on the truck door and Dirk hesitantly unlocks the door.

Todd climbs into the passenger seat of the car and closes the door behind him. The automatic overhead light of the car slowly fades, but Todd flicks it back on, and turns to look at Dirk. He hastily wipes his face. 

“You okay?” He asks, looking genuinely concerned. That's something Todd does well. Grumpy and concerned are his best moods. “Bart said you went to clear your head, or something like that.” 

“Or something like that.” Dirk echoes, in almost agreement. He clears his throat. “I just needed some space. From her. After what she did, I…” 

“I get it.” Todd says, softly, and Dirk turns to look at him. He's suddenly all too aware that Todd and Ken have to get over this too, not quite to the extent that Dirk does, but still a fair deal. “It's scary. I'm scared, and I'm frankly not surprised that you are, too. But, hopefully, soon we’ll be in one place for a while and we’ll have time to make this not scary. We’ll be okay.”

“You think so?” He can't help but ask.

“I know so. It takes time, but it works. If Amanda lets us stay…” he trails off and Dirk sees the way he seems to be holding his breath. Dirk stares until he exhales. “I just want her to be there. That would be enough for me, you know?” 

“Yeah.” Dirk agrees, absently. He wonders what it's like to have a sister, even a sister as distant as Amanda is to Todd. 

“You'll love her, I know it.” Todd continues, not noticing that Dirk has drifted out of the conversation. He's staring out the windshield at the other side of the parking lot, the other side of the motel. All the curtains are drawn, all the lights are turned off, save for a few supposed insomniacs and all the porch lights. 

“That's exciting.” He says.

“Yeah. Um, well, I'd better get back.” This is what makes Dirk turn from the windshield and look at Todd, fidgeting, awkwardly, in his seat. “The sooner I sleep the sooner we can get back on the road, right?”

“Yeah, right.” Dirk agrees, but looks up at the door to their room and openly shudders.

Todd opens the truck door and makes as if to climb out, before turning back to Dirk briefly. “Uh, good night?” He says as if it's a question. 

Dirk doesn't answer for a second. And then he says, “Todd?”

“Yeah?” Todd is standing on the asphalt outside the truck. 

“The night we…” Dirk clears his throat, and starts over. “The night at the house, did we…?”

Todd furrows his brow and looks up at Dirk with a guarded expression. “...kiss?” 

“Yeah.” Dirk agrees, nodding, nervously.

“Yeah, Dirk.” He says, nodding and gripping the side of the door with a tight hand. “We did.”

Dirk takes a deep breath, steeling himself. “Would you kiss me again?” 

“...okay.”

~

No one speaks on the drive out of Quinalt. There’s tension between Bart and Dirk, from the night before, so Todd and Ken make an effort to keep them separate. They drive slowly, trying to look inconspicuous. The lady from the gas station, Silas’s mother must have notified the police by now, so they’re probably being looked for. 

Todd wonders, absently, hands on the steering wheel, if Mr. Priest has been found, yet. 

It takes them an hour, upon entering Queets, to find the right address, and it takes Todd another thirty minutes to work up the courage to get out of the car and knock on the front door.

They're all standing behind him, on the garden path. Dirk even gives Todd’s hand a quick squeeze before pulling away to let Todd knock his fist against the wooden door.

A minute ticks by and finally he hears feet in the floor inside. The door creaks open. A girl not all that much older than them peers out at the four of them with piercing blue eyes. “Hello?” She asks, and Todd is taken aback by how strange she is. 

“Hi, uh, I'm Todd Brotzman.” He says, and mentally congratulates himself for not stumbling over the words. “I came here looking for my sister, Amanda?”

The woman jerks back, and stares at him. “There's no one he by that name.” She says, and tries to close the door.

Panicked, Todd puts his hand in the gap. “No, please, she sent me a postcard and it had your address on it.” The woman stops trying to close the door, and peers at him, curiously, through the crack in the door. “I swear, I just want to know where my sister is.”

The woman bites her lip. She looks conflicted. Then she opens the door again, and holds her hand out. “Let me see the postcard.” Todd dogs through his backpack until he comes up with it.

She inspects it for a while, reading and rereading it. Ken’s foot is tapping on the garden path, impatiently.

Eventually, she seems content with the postcard and hands it back to Todd with a smile. “My name is Mona Wilder.” She tells them, stepping out onto the front step. “Your sister came to me, years ago, looking for shelter. She moved out a few months later, got her own house down by the coast, not far from here. She lives there with four boys, around her age. It's the first driveway off the highway, to the left.”

“Thank you.” Todd says, excitedly, and races down the steps and onto the garden path. The postman is staring at them, in the middle of putting mail in Mona’s mailbox. He glances between them and Mona don then shakes his head and moves on.

Todd barely has time to wonder if he's recognised them, he's so excited.

Ken insists on driving, as Toddzms hands are almost shaking with anticipation, but he drives as fast as Todd demands, in order to make it to Amanda’s place. The driveway is gravel and rocks them all from side to side and the drive down it, underneath dense shrubbery.

Once they've parked in an open space, just a few meters from the house, Todd is already running towards laughter and singing, down by the beach. She looks almost no different from when he last saw her, Todd thinks, seeing her for the first time in years, running over the rise to the beach.

Of course, she was fourteen, the last time he saw her, and that was three years ago. Her eyes are smeared with eyeliner the way Todd used to do it, and the sides of her head are shaved. She kept the bangs, which is nice. Nostalgic, even.

She stares at him as she catches sight. Stops playing cards with the youngish guy in the leather jacket. She gapes.

Todd knows why.

Amanda's been missing for three years, and he finds her in a week? The odds are so slim they snap.

"Todd?" She asks, getting up from her wicker chair. The youngish guy looks up at her, quizzically, and then tracks where she's looking.

Todd doesn't know when he runs, all he knows is that eventually they crash together and Amanda sobs into his neck.

* * *

**Part Three: Freeze**

* * *

 

_At least tell me if she's dead or alive._

~

The entire day is a blur, Ken thinks, and dinner is a mess that is quickly followed by a line to use the shower and spare clothes being given out to their motley crew. Todd and Amanda don't stay seperate very long at any time, and Ken’s almost weirded out by their closeness.

Amanda’s friends-slash-roommates look at the other three of them with suspicion and curiosity. He tries not to make eye contact with any of them. Ken is left to sleep on the couch, which he doesn't mind, because it's more comfortable than any of the motel beds he's been sleeping in, lately.

When he wakes up, the TV’s on, and Bart’s sitting on the floor, with her back to Ken, watching _Spongebob Squarepants_ and eating cereal. She smells like artificial apples.

Ken lies there, for a while, half-watching the TV over her shoulder, half-wondering if she's going to get up, any time soon. She leans her head back on his arm and their eyes meet.

There's a silent standoff between them that ends when Bart smiles at him. “What time is it?” Ken whispers to her.

“Seven, an’ a bit.” She replies, and spoons a mouth of milk and soggy fruit loops into her mouth.

He sighs. “Why aren't you still asleep?”

Bart shrugs. “Too excited.” She explains, through a mouthful of cereal. Ken wrinkles his nose up. “There's new people ta talk ta." 

“I see.” He says, not actually understanding why Bart would want to befriend any of Amanda’s friends. “Well, I'm going to try and go back to sleep.” 

“Ya do that.” Bart says, dismissively, sitting up, properly. “'m gonna get more fruit loops.” She pads away and Ken’s thankful when he hears her eating her second bowl of cereal in the kitchen instead of right beside his ear. 

~

_It wasn't her fault._

~

It has been exactly two hours since Tina left Farah’s house with a hickey on her neck and a dazed smile on her face. In those two hours, somehow something has gone wrong, and Farah won't look at her, when Tina walks into the station, that morning.

“Hey,” Tina says, setting down the coffee she got for Farah at the drive through coffee joint they usually go to when Tina drives Farah to work. Her own is already sitting on her own desk, beside her keyboard. Maybe a disastrous position, but Tina’s gonna take the chance. 

“Hey,” Farah responds. And doesn’t say anything else. Just keeps typing out an email to Hobbes about any updates on the case since she left.

Tina frowns, kicking her rolly chair over and sitting down. “You okay?” She asks, softly, remembering how upset Farah was, the night before. 

“Just fine, thanks.” Her voice is tight and curt, and Tina feels taken aback.

“What’s wrong?” She asks, and watches the way Farah flinches. “Is this about last night?” 

“Can we not talk about this?” Farah asks, keeping her eyes averted. Tina should have noticed. She should have realised Farah would close off, again. She shouldn’t have left this morning just living off the high. She should have seen the wrinkles between Farah’s eyebrows, the sullen way she stumbled out of bed.

"Why?" Tina replies, knowing that Farah needs her time and her space, but so angry that she’s the one on the receiving end of Farah’s cold shoulder, this time. She’s seen it play out, so often, but she never thought it would happen to her. She never thought she’d ever get close enough for it to happen to her.

"Why would I _want_ to talk about it? It was a mistake. It shouldn't have happened.” There’s heat in Farah’s voice, for a moment. And then it retreats. “We should pretend it didn't happen." 

"Why?” She says, again, and rolls closer. Farah rolls backward. “Are you seriously saying you regret it?" 

"Yes." She hisses, eyes still on the floor.

Tina honestly couldn’t care less that people are staring at them, now. "Why the _hell_ do you regret-"

"Why _don't_ you?" Farah demands, standing up, suddenly, eyes on Tina’s. 

"Because I thought it meant something to you!" She cries, throwing her hands up as she gets to her feet. She’s so sick of Farah slipping up and completely closing up due to indulgence followed by instant regret.

"I took advantage of you!" Farah shouts, and Tina takes a step back, listening to the clack of keyboard keys taper off.

She lowers her voice. "If anyone took advantage of anyone else in this situation, it was me.” Tina says. 

"That's not true." She immediately refutes, but Tina shakes her head.

"You were upset."

"I'm always upset."

" _That's_ not true.” Tina scoffs, folding her arms across her chest. “For a detective you're so shit at lying." 

"Fuck you." Farah snarls, and shoves Tina.

"No, fuck _you_ . Why is this so suddenly a problem?” She glares. “It wasn't _then_."

Farah flushes at the implication, as if remembering the way that Tina had held her in her arms and whispered that she wouldn’t leave, after it was all over. "We should be focusing on the case." She mutters, sitting back down in her chair and scooting back to her desk.

"What if I don't want to?" Tina says, taking a step towards her, defiantly. She’s not going to let this go, just yet. 

"Don't be an idiot, Tina." Farah says, through gritted teeth.

"I'm serious.” No reply. She grabs the back of Farah’s chair and turns her around. “Farah, _listen_ to me."

"What?" She asks, hands folded in her lap.

"Is this about work, or is it about you not being willing to let yourself have something good?" Tina questions.

Farah looks up at her, in shock, as if never expecting a question like that to ever come out of her mouth. Then the shock fades, and she turns back to her computer. "Look over the file. Get back to me once that's done." 

"Farah-" Tina attempts to protest. 

"We’re not having this conversation." She says, sharply, and Tina shrinks back to her own desk.

“Tina?” Calls a voice from the office at the end of the room. Business returns to normal and people begin to type and gossip again. If any awful rumours about her or Farah or the both of them go floating around, she knows she only has herself to blame. Tina gets to her feet and walks over to Hobbes’s office. “Can I talk to you?”

“Yes, sir.” She replies, glumly, and follows him inside.

“Tina.” Hobbes says, with a soft smile. She collapses into the seat across from him with a sigh.

“Sorry, Hobbes.” Tina says to him. Hobbes has been her friend since they were in high school. He was a few years older than her, and when he got into local law enforcement, he encouraged her to go into the police academy. He hired her as a beat cop as soon as she graduated, and helped her work up to Detective status. She met Farah in the police academy. Hobbes has known since Tina did that she had a crush on Farah, so it was super awkward when Farah started working there as well.

Tina just knows that Hobbes can smell a “lovers quarrel”, as he likes to call it, from a mile away, and decides to deflect. “I’m just all tired and shit. Spent most of the night grilling a witness, with a tasty payoff.”

“What’s goin’ on between you and Farah?” He immediately shoves in, and Tina sighs, sinking further into her chair. “Looked heated, and not in the fun way.”

“It’s all okay.” She assures him. “We’re working on it.”

He raises an eyebrow, reaching a hand into his desk drawer and pulling out a bowl of jolly ranchers. Tina takes one. “Are you gonna be able to work this case together?” Hobbes asks. 

“Most definitely.” Tina answers, immediately. “It’ll all be wrapped up in a matter of days, I’m sure.”

“Alright,” he agrees, nodding at her to take a few more lollies, “well, I’ll let you get back to work.”

Tina exits, and catches the tail end of a glance from Farah. 

~

 _She ruined everything._  

~ 

Bart, despite Ken’s obvious hesitation in her plan, sets out to befriend Amanda’s buddies. Amanda’s a tough nut to crack, herself, being grumpy before her coffee, like Todd, and sealing herself off in her bedroom for most of the morning. 

The younger one of the four boys is Bart’s first target. No dice; he screams when she appears beside him, in the kitchen, so she backs off of him. 

The one in the beanie takes off, early in the morning, for work, so, once again, no dice. 

The other two she finds hanging outside, on the porch, trading a cigarette between themselves. Bart licks her lips and says, “Can I ‘ave a puff?” They share a look, but then pass her the cigarette and Bart sucks in some smoke, only to immediately begin coughing. The guys laugh.

The one who gave her the cigarette, the one with the white hair and the glasses nudges her side with his elbow. “How old are you, kid?” He asks, and takes the cigarette from between her fingers.

There's a softness to his face that says she not all that much older than her. “S’venteen.” Bart replies, proudly.

He nods to himself and then at his companion. “So just as old as ‘Manda.”

Bart nods back at him. “‘m Bart.”

“Martin.” He informs her, and then jerks his thumb on his free hand at his companion. “This is Cross.”

“Hiya.” Cross says, waving with all of his fingers. Bart waves back, similarly.

“Is Amanda your girlfriend?” She asks Martin, and he laughs as he inhales some smoke from the cigarette.

“Somethin’ like that,” Martin nods, handing the cigarette off to Cross. Smoke blows out his nose and if Bart hadn't just hacked up a lung in front of him, she'd have demanded to try that. “For sure." 

“Sweet.” She says, and nudges his ribs with her elbow. Martin smiles.

~

_Why did she do it?_

~

"Dorian...Ozman," Farah reads out, tiredly. The boy sitting opposite her nods, shiftily. His handcuffs clank. "Can you tell me why you walked into my police station this morning with five kilos of cocaine on your person?"

He pauses, thinking this question over. "...I found it?" He says in a tone that suggests he actually forgot he had it on him, and forgot that it was actually a crime to be in possession of it up until he was arrested, in the foyer.

Farah narrows her eyes at him. "Mr Ozman, are you high, right now?" 

Dorian’s eyes go wide, and he doesn’t answer. 

"I am an officer of the law, and a state approved detective, plus I've had a very hard morning, so I would appreciate it if you refrained from lying to me.” She says, through gritted teeth and hurriedly pasted on façade. “Are you high right now?”

More pausing, but this time, he looks down, at the floor, and says, "Yes." 

"Okay,” Farah sighs, rubbing her right temple to ward off the incoming headache, “we will deal with that later. Right now, I'd like to ask you a few questions. Why did you come here, this morning?"

"I came to report my missing car." He says, as if scripted.

"Alright.” She says, writing it down. “When did it go missing?" 

"Five days ago." 

She frowns. "And you didn't report it earlier because...?"

Dorian frowns too, and Farah can imagine he’s willing himself not to say _I was so high off my ass I didn’t even realise it was missing._ "I thought it might be my buddies playing a joke on me." He tells her.

"Do your 'buddies' often play jokes like this on you, Mr Ozman?" She asks. 

Dorian considers this, before answering, "Sometimes." 

"Okay.” Teenagers make no sense to her. Drugs and thievery as a joke. “What kind of car was it?"

“Chevrolet Corvette Stingray.” Another scripted answer. Farah’s actually kind of impressed that a kid like him can afford that kind of car. And then she remembers that he walked into the station with five kilos of cocaine in his pocket, and shes not all that impressed, anymore. 

“That's quite a nice car, Mr Ozman.” She says. “What colour is it?”

“Powder blue.” Farah is in no way a car person, but that doesn’t sound like  colour Chevrolet would offer. Dorian seems to recognise this by following his earlier statement up with, “I had a custom paint job done, so it's not a colour that they offer."

"Oh? What's the license plate?" Standard procedure, and then he rattles off a plate that sounds familiar and she has a realisation. "Can you hold on, for just a sec?"

"Yeah..." Dorian replies, even though she isn’t actually going to wait for him to answer, already rushing out of the room, towards her desk.

"Tina!” She yells, when she’s near, and everyone in the general vicinity, including, tina, looks up in alarm. “Tina! I need the case file!"

"Why?” Tina asks, cautiously, still spiky after their fight earlier that morning. Farah’s too high on her realisation to indulge in her own spiky emotions. “I thought you were interviewing that junkie with the five kilos of crack."

"I was, but I need the case file.” She leans in excitedly. “I think he's a witness."

Tina goes a bit pale, eyes lighting up in excitement. "No fucking way."

" _Yes_ fucking way.” Farah says, taking the case file once Tina’s dug it out from under a pile of paperwork. “Tina, it's his car we found torched on the road to DuPont."

"Oh my god." Tina says, seeing this for the breakthrough it is.

"I'll be right back.” Farah says, grinning. “I forgot how great it felt to make a breakthrough in a case."

She practically sprints back to the room she was questioning Dorian in, and slams the door when she arrives inside. "Hi." He greets her, looking a bit freaked out. 

"Yeah, hi, Mr Ozman.” Farah says, _yada yada_ , and flings open the case file, searching for the picture. She finds the right one and holds it up. “Can you tell me, is this your car?" 

"Oh who the fuck torched it?" He demands, angrily, attempting to take the picture from her hands but getting caught by his handcuffs and nearly face planting into table.

Farah quirks an eyebrow, placing the picture on the table in front of him. "So this isn't one of your buddies playing a prank on you?" She questions.

"Oh fuck..." He moans, obviously upset. She can’t imagine how much cocaine he sold to afford it. 

"Mr Ozman, your car was found on the side of route 5, just outside Camp Murray, on the night of Thursday, the third of October.” She informs him, searching through the case file for the suspect pictures. “According to a few eyewitness accounts, this is also the car seen in the driveway of Osmund Priest's house, the day of his murder."

Dorian goes pale. "The person who stole my car killed someone?" He asks, in a small voice that reminds Farah that he’s still a kid. A very misguided kid who walked into her police station with a kilo of crack in his pocket, but a kid nonetheless.

"We believe so." She agrees, solemnly. 

"Oh fuck." He says, again.

Farah takes back the picture of his trashed car and replaces it with all four of the suspect photos. "Mr Ozman, could I have you identify any of these people, by name?" She asks him.

"Well, sure.” He responds, seemingly coming back to himself. He points to one picture. “That's Todd. He gets beat up a lot, behind the bleachers."

"Does he?" He didn’t look the type, and his parents never breathed a word of it, which probably means Todd didn’t tell them. When all this is over, Farah’s going to be sick of sympathising with misguided, law-breaking kids.

"Yeah.” Dorian points to next picture, Ken staring back with dark, sad eyes. “That's Ken Adams. He fixes my wifi sometimes. I used to pick him up in my car. The one that was torched."

"Okay.” Farah writes that down. Ken had been in that car before. Maybe he was the one who initially stole it? Farah nods to Bart’s picture.  “What about her?"

"Dunno.” Dorian shrugs, looking disinterested. “She's a bit shady. Think she might be on some drugs, but I don't know her name." 

More eyebrow raising on Farah’s part. "On drugs the way you are, right now?" She asks, plainly. 

"Uh..."

"Speak respectfully while you're in here." She instructs him.

"Uh. I don't know her name.” He decides on saying. “But she knows Dirk."

"Dirk?" Farah echoes, frowning.

"That guy.” Dorian points to the last picture, Svlad Cjelli’s picture. “Dirk Gently. He brings me tea, sometimes. Real nice." 

"Is that what he told you his name was?" She asks him. Maybe he’s been going by that alias while on the run, as well. Maybe that’s the key to catching them. 

"Yes." Dorian agrees.

"Okay.” Farah collects up the pictures and places them back in the file. “Mr Ozman, I'm sorry, but we're going to have to take you into custody." 

"What? Why?” Dorin looks panicked. “I didn't kill that guy!" 

"Not for that, Mr Ozman, for possession of drugs.” She says to him. “We're gonna have someone search your house." 

Dorian sags and Farah exits with her notes and the case file, excited to put last night behind her and tell Tina all about what just happened with Dorian. 

~

 _You weren’t there._  

~

Dirk’s sitting on the beach, his borrowed jeans rolled up to his knees, and Ken thumps down beside him, heavily.

“Bart woke me up by chewing cereal in my ear, this morning.” He says, conversationally. Dirk turns to look at him. He doesn't look tired. He looks refreshed and content, but a bit grumpy. Dirk knows the feeling.

“Gross?” Dirk replies.

“Sure.” Ken agrees, shrugging, and digging his fingers into the sand either side of his hips. “I just meant you're lucky, having a room all to yourself.” He laughs. “I got a couch.”

“Well, Todd got the futon in the attic, so I would count my lucky stars if I were you.” Dirk comments, and Ken actually laughs, this time. It bounces off the sand, and Dirk can't help but join in. It's just them laughing over Todd drawing the short straw and sleeping in the attic, and the crash of the waves in front of them. 

“If you're really that bothered, we can swap out tonight.” Dirk tells Ken, once they've quieted down. “God knows all these squishy mattresses aren't good for my back. My bed back at home was hard as rock.” They're silent for a moment. _Home._ Todd had promised a safe place to gather their thoughts. To plan, to rest. But Dirk can't see a way forward.

It seems like they're run out of places to run. It seems like the end of the line.

“I know what you mean.” Ken says, slowly, probably sensing the tension in the air that came from Dirk’s earlier comment. “I'll take you up on that swap, though. Bart isn't one for privacy, but I'm sure she'll respect a closed door.”

“Sure.” Dirk replies.

“Okay.” Ken gets to his feet, brushing sand off his borrowed basketball shorts. “Well, um, there's also lunch up at the house, if you're interested.”

“Thanks.” He nods at him, and Ken smiles, a bit, again. It's good to see him smiling. For a while there, it was nothing but hard looks and a set grimace.

“No problem.” And Ken pads back up the sand towards the house. Dirk sighs. The ocean will still be there when he comes back. 

~

 _You wouldn’t understand._  

~ 

They've already checked out the burn sight, already confirmed the car as the one stolen from Dorian Ozman, and now they're interviewing the attendee at the motel the runaways probably stayed at.

“I guess they were a bit shifty, and two of them were wearing odd clothes.” Says the attendee, looking uncomfortable. Tina supposes being questioned by a pair of cops in the middle of a murder investigation must have an uncomfortable air.

“Which two?” Farah asks, gesturing to the pictures spread out on the counter.

“The two redheads, the boy and the girl.” The attendee points to Bart and Svlad and Tina sighs. Always those two. They're going to need serious therapy when this is all over, she thinks. “The clothes looked too big for them.”

“I see.” Farah scribbles something down on her notepad and Tina shoots the attendee an encouraging smile. “Were there any noise complaints that night? Anything odd found in the rooms after they left?”

“No, they were respectful patrons.” She replies, wringing her hands together. It looks like this line of questioning is really bothering her. Tina nudges Farah, Gently, with her elbow and Farah nods at her. “Even made the beds when they left. We had to wash the linen before putting the room back up, but the thought was nice.”

“Alright, thank you.” Farah says, collecting up the photos and giving the attendee a nod. 

“So, they're good kids, they just happened to murder somebody and didn't know what to do about it, so they drove a car, filled it with the evidence from the crime scene and set it on fire.” Tina says, as they walk through the parking lot, towards Tina’s car. “And now they're on the run.”

“I'm pretty sure that the kids who robbed that gas station down near Quinalt are our suspects, but I'm waiting on confirmation from the lady who got robbed.” Farah replies, absently, almost as if she hadn't been listening. Tina doesn't blame her. Things have been hectic, lately, and with all this new information pouring in, it's hard to keep track of everything.

“Sweet.” She says, and climbs into the car. “It's kinda like we’re actual cops, isn't it?”

“We _are_ actual cops, Tina.” Farah reminds her, sorting through a file on her lap instead of doing up her seatbelt. She notices the way Tina!s looking at her and sighs, reaching for her seatbelt in a petulant way that says _happy?_

“I know.” Tina replies, pulling out of the motel parking lot. “It just properly feels like it, now.” 

~

 _We couldn’t just stand there and do nothing._  

~ 

Todd walks down the stairs, intending to rummage through the kitchen for something to eat, until he hears voices, and ducks behind a wall. 

"You okay?" Todd hears the guy with the glasses and the white hair ask her, as Amanda drops some butter into the frying pan. The guy's name is Martin, that's what Amanda kept calling him.  
  
"What do you mean?" She replies, evasively. It's so strange to see her like this, in her natural habitat, engaging in playful, albeit awkward, banter with her roommate/possible boyfriend.  
  
"You're actin' weird." He tells her, and leans against the counter, beside her. He actually looks concerned, which bodes well for possible boyfriend points.  
  
"Well," Amanda sighs, turning to him, and crossing her arms over her chest, "other than trying to act like my brother turning up out of the blue, after years of silence, and completely disrupting the life I made for myself - the life I made with you," he watches as Amanda gently runs her fingers down Martin's inner wrist, and winces at the intimacy of it all, "everything is fine."  
  
Todd leans back against the wall and closes his eyes. He wants to go back to bed and try and forget that his baby sister ever thought him inconvenient. He opens his eyes back up and finds himself rooted to the spot. Martin looks quite tender. This is pretty much all the evidence he needs to think they're dating, to a certain extent. "Are they stressin’ you out?"  
  
"No, I'm just a little shocked." Amanda informs him, and turns back to her frying pan, pouring pancake mixture into it. "I didn't want anything to change." 

“You never want anythin’ to change.” Martin laughs, and catches her up in his arms. His chin is settled over her shoulder, and it’s so sickeningly practiced and domestic that Todd feels almost voyueristic looking in on it. “You don’t want to buy a new brand of peanut butter ‘cause you like the one we use, even though it’s been discontinued. You don’t want to get rid of the bed sheets even though they’ve been worn through.”

“That’s different, and you know it, Martin.” Amanda says, frustratedly, pushing him away. Martin’s arms come undone easily, and Todd’s glad to know that this guy knows when to stop. She obviously doesn’t want to be touched, right now. “This is my _brother_ we’re talking about. My brother who brought…these crazy ass people into my _house_ .” She turns from the counter to look at Martin and her eyes sweep right over Todd. She doesn’t seem to see him, though. “I know the look of someone who’s run away, so believe me when I tell you he’s not going home ever again.”

“And neither are you, we’ve talked ‘bout this. No matter what happens, you’re one of us, now. Whatever you need, we’ll do it for you.” Tenderness returns to her gaze and she allows him to carefully take her hand. “ _I’ll_ do it for you.”

Todd looks away when they kiss, feeling awful that he’s barged right into this, that he’s not even respecting her privacy now, that he practically invited himself in. But that’s the problem. Amanda can’t know what they’ve done, but they can’t safely leave without warning her. “...Martin, I’m gonna burn the pancakes.” He hears her murmur.

“Take ‘em off the heat, then, we’ve got time.” Martin murmurs back, and Todd goes red. 

“What if someone walks in?” Amanda whispers.

“Yeah, they’ve got to go, asap, if you’re suddenly worried about someone walkin’ in on us.”

“Martin!” He steps around the wall, into the kitchen, making himself known, suddenly.

“Amanda.” They break apart so quickly Todd’s not quite sure if he even actually saw them all pressed up against the counter, at all. She looks a bit angry and a bit embarrassed. Martin just looks annoyed. “Can I talk to you?”

“Do I have any choice?” She grumbles.

Todd doesn’t bother answering, knowing he’ll just make her angry. She grabs a fluffy coat on her way out, and they pad across the sandy front yard. Amanda busies herself with lighting up the remnants of a fire in the fire pit and feeding it leaves.

She gestures for Todd to come and sit beside her on the picnic table, a pile of sticks by her foot. She kicks a stick off the bench and into the fire. It crackles and spits, as if in thanks. Todd's got to be going nuts if he's imagining the fire has a personality. The last fire he saw didn't have personality, just lots of evidence to destroy.

Amanda doesn't speak for a while. She just swings her feet and stares at the fire.Todd realises he was the one who wanted to talk to her, so it’s up to him to start this conversation. "Was that your boyfriend?" 

"Who?" Amanda responds, with a guarded expression on her face.

"The guy with the glasses.” He answers immediately, and backtracks at her dirty look. “In the kitchen with you. Martin?”

She shrugs, the fur-lined hood of her coat bobbing with her shoulders. "I guess." Amanda responds, and stares into the fire. 

"Cool."

Silence. He hates this. When did he lose his sister?

(When she ran away, he guesses.)

"Why did you go?" He finds himself asking. It’s the question he’s wanted to ask her since she disappeared, no note, no explanation as to why. 

"Come on, Todd.” She scoffs. “You were there. You know I never would have fucking survived in that town."

He stares at his hands, illuminated by filtered sun through the clouds and the red flames of the fire. "You were depressed?"

"No. I was just bored.” She bumps her elbow into his, with a soft grin. “I probably would have killed myself just for something to do." It sounds like a joke, but there’s just enough honesty in her tone for Todd to know better.

"Don't joke about that.” Todd snaps, feeling fear curl up in his stomach, that that was how his sister was feeling, and she felt like that alone, that he didn’t help her. “It's not funny."

"Todd..." Amanda says, quietly. He always wondered if she missed him. He always wondered until the postcard showed up in his mail, telling him to stop looking, stop worrying, just stop. She wasn’t coming back. She’d never come back, and if he knew any better he’d leave, too.

Here he is, now. Ran the same way she did, ran to her. He sees the resentment in her that he didn’t listen. "I'm sorry.” Todd says, turning to look at her. She’s not looking at him. “I've just come barging back into your life and I didn't even think about-"

"How did you even find me?" Amanda finally demands, something desperate and angry bubbling to the surface of her awkwardly placed façade.

"The postcard.” There’s panic in her eyes, terror on her face when he says this. “Mom and dad didn't know. They still don't." 

The panic turns to confusion. "But I don't stay there anymore." She says.

"The lady who does told me to come here." Todd tells her. 

Amanda puts her face in her hands and mutters, "That little snitch."

"She meant well." He attempts to assure her, and puts a hand on his shoulder, only for her to flinch away, violently.

"Todd, I know what you did." Amanda blurts out, before covering her mouth with her hand and scotting further away from him on the table.

Todd feels blood flood to his cheeks, his heart slowing. "What?" He says, but he already knows what she meant.

"I mean, how could I not?” She turns to look at him, and there is actual fear in her eyes, shivering inside her tone. “Your face is on the news, twenty-four-seven, dude. I know you and your friends are suspects in a murder investigation and I know you robbed that gas station.” She runs a hand through her hair, frustratedly. “I'm not gonna rat you out, but I don't want you to pretend that you're all innocent coming up here." 

"Amanda-"

She holds up a hand, effectively silencing him. "I don't wanna know why you did it." Amanda tells him, but Todd is still processing that she knows. She _knows_. 

He still tries to explain himself, because he can’t bear his sister thinking he’s a murderer. "It's not like it was in cold blood, or anything-" 

"Todd,” another halting gesture, and disbelief in her voice, “the news said you guys _broke into his house_." 

"He was hurting Dirk!" Todd yells and Amanda looks shocked. 

“He was _what_?” She asks. 

“He just walked right into the bedroom where Dirk was sleeping and hit his head against the headboard. And then he tied him to a chair and stabbed him in the shoulder and he took pictures.” Todd takes a few deep breaths, staring into the fire like it isn’t eating away at his retinas. “We didn’t know Bart was under the bed, but if she hadn’t been, Dirk would be dead, right now.”

“Todd,” and he almost bursts into tears in relief when she scoots back over to him and puts a hand on his shoulder. “What the fuck are you going to do?”

“I have no idea.” He admits and he hesitantly pulls her into his arms. Amanda hugs him back. It’s not a solution, but it’s better than a secret.

~

 _We didn’t know._  

~ 

Frija Dengdamor identifies Todd and Svlad as her robbers. Farah really wishes it wasn't the,l but there's nothing she can do to change it. Todd and Svlad stole gas and half the cash register and snacks of varying kinds. They locked her in the back room and urged her son to run away with his boyfriend.

They murdered a man in his own house and drove away in a stolen car. 

Farah wants to believe that they're good kids caught up in a messy situation, but there's so much evidence pointing to the contrary. 

She grants permission to have their robbery and photos televised. She wants them found. She wants them out of harms way where she can finally get some answers.

~ 

_I shouldn’t have gone._

~

He's been in the shower for probably thirty seconds at most, when the shower curtain is pulled back, abruptly. He gives a yell, in surprise, and turns to find Bart standing beside the bathtub he's standing in. "Fuck," he sighs, in almost relief, because it's still fucking weird that she decided to barge into his showers, but at least it's just her and not someone else. "I thought you were gonna go all Norman Bates on me."  
  
"What?" Bart asks with a creased forehead and a wrinkled nose.  
  
"You know? Getting stabbed to death in a shower?" Ken asks her, glancing at the neat pile of his clothes on the closed toilet seat. She doesn't seem to think it's weird that he's naked, but she does frown at his stabbing motions. "Classic _Psycho_ ."  
  
"What didja jus' call me?" Bart demands, looking put out.  
  
"Bart, please close the shower curtain." Ken says to her. She climbs into the bathtub and closes the shower curtain, seating herself on the edge of the bathtub. "...not like that."  
  
"Can we talk?" She asks instead of addressing that last comment.  
  
"Do we have to talk, right now?" Ken says, deciding to face the wall instead of her, just because it'll make him feel better.  
  
"Why not?" Bart says.  
  
"Because I'm naked." He replies, candidly, glancing over his shoulder at her.  
  
"So what. Are ya uncomfortable?" She inquires, frowning. "I can be naked, too."  
  
"No!" Ken yells, holding his hands out to stop her as she reaches for the hem of her borrowed t-shirt. Bart stares at him, but doesn't make anymore moves to remove her clothing. "Don't do that."  
  
He imagines she looked a little amused before this, but then the amusement fades. "Can we talk?" Bart asks so quietly he barely hears it over the shower.  
  
"What do you want to talk about?" Ken replies, grabbing a face cloth from the shower rack and holding it in such a way that it might spare him some dignity.  
  
Bart swallows and rubs her arm. Now she looks uncomfortable. "Are ya scared o' me?"  
  
"Why would I be scared of you?" He asks, and winces, because it's so obvious, isn't it? He shuts the water off and pulls back the shower curtain.  
  
"'Cause I killed someone right in front o' you. I literally murdered someone and ya had ta calm me down, afterwards." She replies, following him out of the shower, and sitting on the edge of the bathtub again, not seeming remotely aware that the way she's staring is weird. "I think ya have reason ta be scared o' me."  
  
"Bart..." Ken trails off as he wraps the towel provided by Todd's sister around his waist, turning around to look at her, dead on. "Do we have to have this conversation right now?"  
  
She raises her eyebrows and watches him glance at the door. "Ev'ryone already thinks we're 'aving sex, anyway." Bart tells him, shrugging.  
  
"Why?" He splutters, feeling heat in his cheeks at the implication that the others had thought he and Bart were-  
  
"'Cause we keep disappearin', together." Bart replies, not looking perturbed that someone had thought about her in such a compromising position.  
  
"That's mostly your fault." Ken feels the need to point out.  
  
"Whatever. Ya barely knew me when I did tha', and ya're still 'ere." Bart says to him, blowing a strand of red hair out of her face, still unused to having her hair so short. Ken feels the same way. She looks uneasy, like she's forcing herself to say all this, like this is a part of herself she doesn't want to bare to him. "And 'm tryin' ta figure out if ya're still here 'cause ya wanna or 'cause ya're scared I'll hurt ya if ya try ta leave."  
  
"Bart, I..." He's at a loss for words. He knows what she will ask. He doesn't want her to.  
  
She looks up at him, and he's never actually seen fear in them, before, but this really turns the tables. "Are ya scared o' me, Ken?" Bart asks.

~

_I’m such an idiot._

~ 

Ending up in Queets is inevitable. After televising the gas station robbery and all the kids’ photos they'd gotten a call saying that they'd been spotted in Queets a few days beforehand.

Tina and Farah end up doing the arduous task of going door to door and asking residents if they'd seen any of their suspects. It's a flat _no_ from almost everyone but a man in a red bathrobe who says they drove through his mailbox. Upon pointing out his mailbox looked fine, he slammed the door in their faces 

The last person they come upon is a woman called Mona Wilder who gazes out at them from below sharp bangs. They hold up pictures and she narrows her eyes. “He looks like that kid...the brother of that girl that went missing a long time ago.” She tells them, reaching out to Todd’s picture. Tina allows her to take the picture from her hands.

“Amanda Brotzman.” Farah replies, looking as if she’s wondering if Mona can tell them anything. Knowing Farah, she probably is. 

“Yes,” Mona says, almost to herself. “That was her name.”

“That _is_ her brother, Todd Brotzman.” Tina informs her, tapping the picture with her index finger.  “Have you seen him or any of his friends around here?” 

“No.” Mona tells her, handing back the picture with an apologetic smile. “No one likes coming to Queets.” It’s an unfairly blunt statement. Tina can’t help but wonder who told her that.

“Okay, then.” Tina says, slipping Todd’s picture back into its clear plastic folder. She nods to Mona, politely. “Thank you for your time.” 

Farah frowns as they descend the steps, onto the unkempt garden path. Tina can sense her unease. She’s fidgeting with the hem of her jacket. “Did something seem off about her, to you?” She asks, suddenly, and Tina frowns, opening the garden gate.

“Like the fact she recognised Amanda Brotzman’s brother, despite Amanda going missing years ago?” Tina asks, and holds open the gate for Farah to pass through.

“Yeah,” she says, still frowning. “Something like that.” 

Tina almost walks directly into the mailman, who jumps back on the cracked sidewalk, in fright.

“Hi there,” Tina says, recovering, and holding out her hand to greet him. He looks pretty young, like he works the off days for pocket money. Not that much older than the kids they’re looking for. “I'm Detective Teventino, this is Detective Black.” Tina rifles through her clear plastic folder and pulls out the pictures. Farah helps, wordlessly, to display them before the mailman. “Have you seen any of these people around, recently.” 

He gives each of them a glance and then purses his lips, defiantly. “Nope.”

Farah peers at him, with a wrinkled nose. “What's your name?” She asks him, and he looks between Tina and Farah with a worried look. 

“Scott Boreton.” He informs them. Tina finishes stuffing the pictures back in the folder.

“Well, Scott, I don't think you're a very good liar,” Tina tells him, honestly. Scott blanches, suddenly, and Tina plows on. “Lucky for you, though, I'm really hungry right now, so if you do end up remembering anything about these kids, I suggest you call me, okay?” 

She hands him a FroYo rewards card from her wallet that expired a month ago, with her number scribbled on the back. Farah watches on in muted boredom. “...okay” Scott eventually relents, taking the card from between Tina’s fingers and stuffing it in the back pocket of his jeans.

“Thanks, Scott.” Tina grins, patting him on the shoulder as she passes. “Have a nice day.”

“Tina, that was a potential witness.” Farah hisses, once he’s out of earshot.

“I know.” Tina shrugs, nonchalantly. “And the shiftiest of witnesses come forward when they're scared. He looked shifty and scared. Now, let’s go get some waffles, I'm starving.” 

~

 _Do I have to go home?_  

~ 

There's a sourness in her stomach. It bubbles and churns, the way it did back in the kitchen in that awful house, when she and Ken were making dinner. The feeling of something awful about to happen. 

Bart wishes she knew if the fear and the unease were real. She wishes she knew whether to listen to her instincts or not. The last time she did that, she ended up in the run. 

She's sitting on the roof of Todd’s sister’s house. There's a sourness in her stomach, and it bubbles and churns, and Bart can't fight back the feeling that the curtains are closing, that this is all coming to an end. 

Bart leans back, lying flat on the tiles.

The sky is blue, and everything is crumbling around her.

~

_There wasn’t a choice - none of us had any choice._

~

There’s a knock at the door and Farah groans, not wanting to get out from under her electric blanket. She has all the case files spread out on her bed so she hopes it’s not room service, or something. It’s just Tina.

“Hey,” she greets her, opening the door wider so her partner can enter. Tina takes one look at the case files, and grins.

“Late night case solving?” She asks, bumping their elbows together. 

“It’s only nine.” Farah replies, a laugh in the tone of her voice. “But, yeah. I’m hoping I can crack this one open with only coffee and my sleep-deprived brain.”

“They’ll show up, eventually.” Tina tells her, climbing onto one of the only clear space of bed, and shivering as she registers the electric blanket. “They’re travelling as a group of four, and their faces are all over national TV. It’s only a matter of time.”

“Yeah. I just can’t get over this, T.” Farah says, sitting down beside her and pinching the edge of one of the polaroids. “Besides jail time, these kids are going to need _serious_ therapy.”

“You’re telling me.” There’s a long pause as they both survey the images left behind on Osmund’s body. Then Tina’s demeanor shifts. “Hey. I’ve been wanting to ask you something.” 

Farah’s not really listening. Where would these kids go? Ken has no family left, neither do Bart or Svlad, and Todd has no extended family to speak of. Could it just be that they're running for the sake of running, no plan? Seems dumb, to Farah, and Farah doesn't think these kids are dumb. “Yeah?” She replies, absently.

There's a pause, and Tina stills beside her, as if psyching herself up for something. “Why’d you ghost me after we slept together?” She asks, an edge in her calm tone that suggests she is not as calm as she may pretend.

Farah slumps, refusing to look up and meet her eyes. “Tina…” She sighs, defeatedly.

“No, I want to know.” Tina says, defiantly. “It’s not fair that you get to pretend everything’s okay after you left me in the dust, okay? I still have no idea what happened between us.”

She puts her hands up, pushing a few papers off the bed so she can scoot away. Retreat recalibrate, attack. “What happened between us was that we slept together, and it wasn’t professional.” Farah tells her.

Tina’s eyebrows nearly reach her hairline with how she’s raising them. “That’s what worried you?” She asks, a bit aghast. “Are you serious?”

“Not just that. People I care about get hurt. That’s just my life. I can’t risk you.” Softness creeps into her voice without her permission and she sees the same softness in Tina, in the way she pursues Farah across the bed. “What if something happened to you and I was too late to help you? What if you died and I was left behind, with no way of fixing everything, Tina?”

Tina doesn’t say anything for a long time. She seems to consider all of this, considering it like a very serious true or false question. Then, she looks up, earnestness in her eyes, in the curve of her mouth, vulnerability in her whole form. “Do you love me?” She asks, and Farah can’t tell her the truth, she just can’t. 

“I don’t want to-” She tries to deflect.

“ _Do you love me_?” Tina repeats, papers crumpling under her hand.

“Yes!” Farah tells her, flush high in her cheeks, allowing her feelings to be known. Tina honestly looks a little surprised. “I do!”

“Will you, like,” Tina scratches the back of her neck, and then leans forward, on the hand that's crumpling sheets of the file, leaning into Farah. Farah lets her. She gulps, and Farah honestly cannot bring to mind the last time she saw Tina as nervous as this. “Will you kiss me?” 

“I can’t.” She rasps

“Why not?” She says, and then recoils from herself, as if surprised at her own forwardness. Farah is somehow reminded of when they first met, at the police academy, when Tina was young and always forward, always loud, always touching. She learned to know better, but even now she has little control of the reins. “I get it if you just don’t want me touching you-”

“I don’t want you getting hurt.” Farah murmurs, still caught up in memories, like when they passed the exam, the way Tina had kissed the corner of her mouth, in thanks. Like how surprised she looked when Farah turned up at the same station as her. 

“You know you’re not a trouble magnet, right?” Tina tells her, sitting back on her heels and running a hand through her hair to push it back from her eyes. 

“You’ll still get hurt,” Farah informs her, lump in her throat, “I know it.” 

“No, Farah, you don’t know that. Not for sure.” She’s wrong. For all her intelligence, for all her brilliance, she’s wrong. Farah’s father taught her, early on, that it was trivial to pretend everything wouldn’t end in catastrophe. You can plan and scheme and brace yourself all you want but in the end it was all worthless. “Love is about taking chances.” 

“What if I lied?” Farah asks, desperate to push Tina away before she actually found out how broken and in love Farah was. “What if I don’t love you and I was just saying that to get you to shut up?” 

“Don’t say that.” Tina whispers, obviously hurt that Farah would ever think to say such a thing.

It’s an opening, a mistake, a chance for Farah to take advantage of the flash of vulnerability, without thinking twice. “Would you lay off if I told you I don’t love you?” She pushes, gaining her footing and rising into a crouch, willing Tina to take the out.

“I’d know it wasn’t true.” She replies, stonily, but there’s cracks in it, weaknesses. “I know you don’t like lying to me, and you wouldn’t lie to me about something like this.”

“Tina, stop it.” Farah begs, wanting it to be over, because, yes, she loves her, but she’ll only hurt her. That’s all she ever does. 

But Tina’s not stopping. She reaches forward, fingers wrapping around Farah’s forearms. “I know you think you’re not good enough, but I’m not going to let you-”

Farah rips away from her, finally getting to the end of her rope. “ _Stop it_!”

“Right.” Tina says, blankly, every expression of desperation, of love, of agitation suddenly gone. She’s closed off, just like that. Just like Farah wanted. Farah hates it. “Obviously I overstepped. I’m going to bed.”

With that, Tina gets off the bed and practically speedwalks away. “Wait, Tina-” She has time to say before Tina slams the door behind her. Farah pulls her knees up to her chest. Why won’t Tina believe her? Everyone she’s ever loved have gotten hurt or hurt her. It’s the simple truth. 

She’ll just let Tina stew. The longer she stews, the more Farah can convince herself she made the right decision. 

~

_Stop looking at me like that!_

~ 

After dinner, he and Todd go for a walk, on the beach, because it’s still cold as fuck but Dirk’s never seen the ocean in real life, and he wants to soak up the image as much as he can. 

The sun sets very quickly, as they walk. Todd takes his hand. Dirk flushes. It’s everything he wanted, bar the murder. Running away, walking the length of the beach, hand in hand, with the guy he’d had a crush on for actual years.

And when Todd turns to him, and they halt, feet sinking in the soft, gritty sand, Dirk’s sure this must be some elaborate dream, because then Todd is asking if he can kiss him.  Can Dirk stand to say no?

He doesn’t. He likes this kiss much better than the ones that preceded it. Better than the drunk, wet kisses, the trembling kisses in the car outside the motel. This kiss escalates in a way the others didn’t. This kiss has hands cupping jaws and necks, this kiss has them tumbling onto the sand, and being okay with it, because there’s the two of them, together.

Todd settles on top of him, a firm weight, a grounding weight, and Dirk can’t kiss him with more feeling than he’s kissing him, now. 

And it wouldn't be a particularly big problem if Dirk could just shut his mind up for a second. It would be fine kind of moment, maybe even a grand kind of moment, but Dirk can't just focus on the way Todd is kissing him.

No. He has to keep thinking about the solid weight of Todd on top of him that feels too much like Priest, pressing him down into the too-soft mattress by his wrists, his legs trapped, his ribs crushing into his lungs. He tastes the blood.

And he panics.

"Stop," he says, hands against Todd's chest, pushing, shoving, urgent. "Please stop."

Todd pulls away, all the way away, off of him completely, and it's a breath of fresh air. It doesn't make him any less panicked. 

"Are you okay?" Todd asks, cautiously. While Dirk knows if Todd touches him he'll panic further, he still wishes Todd would move to touch him. 

"Can we wait for a bit?" And Dirk wants to take back the way his voice sounds when the words come out, cracked and warbled. "I don't think I'm...I'm not sure that I can..." 

"We will wait for as long as you need." Todd says, softly. "I'll wait forever, if that's what you need."

"Todd." Dirk says, and his voice cracks, again. He digs his fingers into the sand beneath his palms. It's gritty and it scratches behind his nails, finding crevices to sneak into. He never thought running away would be like this. Running to the end of the earth, not because he wanted to, but because he had to.

"Dirk." He never thought running away would be this scary. He thought it would just be living his life to the fullest or something. Not this. Never this. "Dirk?"

He looks up at Todd. "Let's go back." 

Dirk kind of expects Todd to ask why. He doesn't. He just says, "Okay," and holds out his hand to help Dirk to his feet. 

~

_I couldn’t watch it any longer._

~

Her phone is going off, buzzing and flashing on her other pillow. Tina clicks receive and holds it to her ear as she rubs her eyes. She was actually hoping to get some sleep after that fight with Farah, but, apparently, this caller thinks otherwise. 

“Is this Detective Teventino?” A frantic voice on the other end of the line asks. Tina frowns and pulls her phone away from her ear, checking out the number. It’s not registered in her phone.

“Yep, that’s me,” She responds, sitting up and turning on her bedside lamp. “Who’s this?”

“Mona Wilder harboured fugitives.” The voice replies, instead of answering her question.

Tina blinks. “Excuse me?” She says, trying to get this accusation through her head. 

“I saw her.” Insists the voice that is so familiar. Tina tries to put her finger on it while she listens with wide eyes. “They came to her, the ones who killed that guy in Seattle. She sent them south of Queets. They’re staying in this beach house down the coast.”

Tina lets a long silence stretch between them as she tries to process this. And it clicks. 

“...Scott Boreton, is that you?”

He hangs up. Tina blinks, confusedly at her phone until the screen goes dark again. _They came to her, the ones who killed that guy in Seattle. She sent them south of Queets. They’re staying in this beach house down the coast._ A part of her knows she should alert Farah to this development. Another part of her, a vengeful, petty part says she should check it out, alone. Just in case it’s phony. 

She wouldn't want to waste her partners time. 

Tina gets up and puts on her clothes, and sneaks out of her hotel room, flashing a smile at the lady behind the counter in the foyer.

~

 _We didn’t ask questions._  

~

The house is actually in sight when Dirk asks, “What do it think we’ll do next? 

“What do you mean?” Todd asks, squeezing Dirk’s hand in his. At least he could say something good came out of this mess. Something okay, and real, and better than before. Amanda and Dirk. 

“I mean, where should we go, what should we do?” Dirk replies, and swings their joined hands between them. The wind is picking up, making the air around them chilly. Todd wants to get back in the house, back where it's warm, as soon as possible. But Dirk stops in his tracks and Todd has to stop with him. “What if the police find us?”

“They won't find us.” Todd says, immediately.

“How do you know that?” Dirk demands.

“I don't.” Todd admits, after a minute, and Dirk arches an eyebrow at him. “But what I do know is they haven't found us yet, so we’re technically still ahead of them.” There's a long silence. The faint light from the porch is shining on DirkMs face, lighting him up in orange. It makes his hair shine the same colour. Todd tugs on his arm. “Come on, inside. We need to get some sleep. We can decide what comes next in the morning, okay?” 

“Okay.” Dirk agrees with an uneasy look on his face, and Todd suspects this isn't the end of the conversation. 

~ 

_We were just glad it was over._

~

The door clicks shut behind her and Farah tip-toes across the hall before knocking, softly on the door. “Tina?” She calls, trying not to be too loud, but loud enough that Tina can hear her. “Tina can we talk?” 

No answer. Figures. Tina’s all emotion, all the time, and she isn’t one to get over something quickly, so if she’s giving Farah the silent treatment, Farah isn’t surprised.

“I’m sorry.” She says. “I shouldn’t have used you the way I did, and I shouldn’t have said all that stuff.”

Still no answer. Not even a rustle of sheets to signal Tina rolling over in bed to listen.

“Look, I was being selfish. I wanted to be with you, but I knew what people would say, not even just about professionalism, but about us, about _you_ , and I couldn’t stand the thought that you wouldn’t be happy with me because of some bigoted assholes. And I get if you don’t want me like that, anymore, I get if I’ve messed up astronomically, but I need you to tell me if I’m getting anything right, at all.” 

Farah slides down the door, and sits with her back to it. She imagines that Tina’s doing the same, on the other side of the door, even if she knows Tina hasn’t moved since Farah started talking. 

“You know my dad was a fucked up guy who had this weird complex over me where all I’d do was hurt people I loved. I guess he thought I was the antichrist or something, because he always treated me badly and differently, no matter how hard I tried. I know I’ve carried that same complex over into all this stuff with you, and I hate that I have, but I have, and I need you to know that I’m sorry.”

Still no answer.

“Tina, would it be asking so much to tell me if I’m forgiven, or at least on the way?”

Farah decides to just assume Tina isn’t ready to forgive her, yet, and that’s okay. Farah’s waited longer for forgiveness. Farah will wait her whole life for Tina to forgive her, she will spend her whole life trying to make it up to Tina. 

“Okay. You’re right. I should go to bed.” Farah whispers, pressing her forehead, briefly to the door. “We have a big day coming up. Goodnight, Tina.” 

No answer.

She gets to her feet and slides her key card into the slot in her door. It beeps. What will it take to make Farah stop being afraid of loving Tina?

(And how long will it take her to realise she apologised to an empty room?)

~

_We thought it was over._

~ 

Ken sits on the bed and wonders what he’s going to do. He knows they can’t stay here. Soon enough, Amanda will want them out, and then where will they go? 

But Todd doesn’t want to leave, and Dirk won’t leave without him. 

Ken can’t forgive himself for telling Bart the truth, in the bathroom, but that doesn’t mean that it’s over. None of this is over. He doesn’t want it to be over, yet. He feels guilty, yes, and he feels scared, but he feels excited, too. Because everything is unpredictable and he’s never had the chance to do something unpredictable, before.

He’s scared of what he still doesn’t understand about Bart, but he wants to push past it. He wants to live a freely as her, he wants to run with her. Ken wants so much, so suddenly, and he has no idea what to do about it.

They have to leave, and Ken wonders, if it comes to it, if he can bear to leave Dirk and Todd behind.

~

_We wanted it to be over._

~

The drive is very short, just out of town and about ten minutes up the highway until she spots a narrow gravel driveway. Tina nods to herself, and turns around, parking her car far enough away that it won’t look suspicious to anyone who came up the driveway. 

And from there she walks. It’s so fucking cold, she wishes she’d thought to put on more layers before making her hasty exit. Tina wonders if Farah’s noticed she’s gone, yet. Knowing Farah, she probably doesn’t give a damn, yet. 

It’s a long walk through overhanging branches and she attempts to not step on twigs, a gun in one hand and a torch in the other. And then, Tina sees lights. She switches off her torch and ducks into the underbrush to avoid being seen. There’s a two story house on the edge of the woodland, right next t where the sand starts, waves crashing nearby. 

There are two cars parked outside, one a huge graffitied van, the other a rusty red truck. It matches the car that Frija Dengdamor described her robbers arriving in. 

“...you don’t have to worry, how many times do I have to tell you?” Says a voice, and Tina peeks through some bushes, in time to see Todd Brotzman and Svlad Cjelli emerging from the beach. Holding hands. Tina cannot fucking believe this.

They stop near the porch. Todd takes both of Svlad’s hands in his. “It’s going to be okay. We’ll be safe here.”

“But, Todd, what if we’re not?” Tina snaps a discreet picture of the two of them, and quickly pockets her phone again, making sure her phone is on silent, as always, so as not to ruin her cover. “What if it’s all about to go wrong and we’re too wrapped up in our post-crime bliss to notice?” 

“Dirk, I swear to you that it will all be okay. And even if it’s not, we’ve gone through worse and come out okay on the other side.” 

Dirk? That’s what Dorian Ozman had called Svlad, too. Maybe it’s his preferred name. Todd kisses him, and they walk back into the house. Honestly, Tina feels like she should be less surprised. Of all of their suspects to hook up, while on the run, the two most emotionally fragile ones if what she would have bet, and as it turns out, she would have won.

A light turns on, upstairs, and Tina ducks again. Ken Adams appears in the window and Tina is so done with these kids. Can’t cover their tracks, can’t hide for shit, can’t keep it in their pants. Then again, neither could Tina, at their age, so who was she to judge? In any case, Tina snaps a picture of Ken, too, for conclusive proof.

Farah’s never gonna believe this, when she finds out.

~

_We were going to leave._

~

Everyone seems to be asleep. All the lights are off. Bart creeps down the stairs, past the doorway to the living room. She peeks in and the couch is empty. Dirk is sleeping somewhere else, tonight, apparently. Bart doesn’t dwell on it. 

She needs to clear her head. She feels stifled in this big house. She flicks the lock off the sliding side door, and slips out onto the side of the porch, hopping over the barrier, onto the sand. It sinks between her toes, cold and grainy.

The sand is like her; welcoming, at first, before it becomes aggravating and sticking to every inch of you until you’re sick of it. Bart wonders if that’s how Ken and Dirk and Todd feel about her, now. Annoying and useless and irritating. Easily gotten rid of it.

“Bart?” Says a voice, and Bart twists to see where the voice came from. It’s Ken, standing on the porch, looking hesitant, in a singlet and basketball shorts that are a little too baggy on him. Bart supposes she’s not much better in her oversized, borrowed shirt, and board shorts. The wind whips her hair in front of her face and she spits it out of her mouth.

Ken uses the time that she’s distracted to walk down the porch and onto the sand beside her. “It’s so cold out here, you’re going to catch a cold.” He says to her, softly. 

“‘m not bother’d.” Bart murmurs and turns from him, sand scraping at her heels, between her toes, walking towards the beach. 

“Where are you going?” Ken asks her, matching her step with his own, longer, strides. Bart watches him trip a bit on the sand and laughs. Ken grins at her, and she only barely sees it in the moonlight.

“Jus’ fo’ a walk.” She tells him, taking her forearm in her calloused hand and helping him to steady as they emerge from the treeline, onto the beach. It’s not really much of a beach on high tide. If she stepped forward only four or five more steps the waves would be lapping at her feet. “I feel like ev’ryone else ‘as ‘ad time on tha beach, lately, so it’s my turn.”

“Do you mind if I come with you?” Ken asks her, and she snorts, thinking _as if you aren’t already._  

“No.” Bart says. “I thought it was too cold?”

He laughs, and it bounces off the sand, echoing down the beach. “Someone’s gotta keep you out of trouble.” He says to her, bumping their shoulders together. Bart is tempted to knock him to the ground in an act of playful retaliation.

“Haha.” Bart says, sarcastically, and looks out at the horizon, the moon hovering, huge and pale, over the sea, making it sparkle and glimmer. “Ya’re not my keepa.”

She’s never had much patience for pretty things, but the natural beauty of this moment is something she finds she has time for. Even Ken looks kind of beautiful, right now, shivering and smiling, his skin lit up by the moon. It’s stupid to think it, she knows, especially after what he said in the bathroom, but she wishes he would stay with her forever.

Bart’s worried they don’t have forever. She’s worried that Amanda or one of the four Rowdy men know what they’ve done - what she’s done - and are going to turn them in, at any moment, police bursting through the door, guns trained on them. Bart doesn’t want that. Who would?

No matter how Dirk feels about her, and how Todd feels about her because of Dirk, she doesn’t want to see them hurt. Even more so with Ken. She doesn’t care what he thinks, he’s too important to risk in this huge, awful, complicated game of cat and mouse where they’re waiting to be caught. She’s not sure what that feeling was, the one that drew her to him in the first place, but it’s still there, and stronger than before. 

Bart knows what she needs to do to preserve this moment.

“Run away with me.” She says, abruptly, and Ken jumps, a little, at how sudden it was.

His face goes all funny. “I thought we’d already done that?”

“Not tha’ way.” Bart clarifies, shaking her head and stopping, her feet sinking, slightly in the sand, making her a bit shorter than him than she usually is. “I mean, like away from ‘ere. Ya and me, on the road, tog’ther.” 

“What about Dirk and Todd?” Ken asks, frowning, now. She doesn’t like it when he frowns.

“They like it ‘ere. I don’ an’ I know ya don’, either. I hate bein’ all cooped up ‘ere. I liked trav’lling tha way we did.” She says, shaking her head, and breathing deeply, in time with the waves, behind her. “I want ya ta run away with me.”

“And if I say no?” He asks, frown deepening, a wrinkle between his eyebrows.

“Then ya can stay, an’ I’ll leave by m’self.” Bart tells him, shrugging, as if she doesn’t care, when, actually, he’s all she cares about, right now. “I’d jus’ rather if ya came with me. I trus’ ya more’n I trus’ anyone else. 

“Oh.” Ken says, and then sits, not saying anything else. Bart sits down, heavily, beside him, wincing at how hard the sand is. 

“Were ya expectin’ me ta force ya?” She asks, because she needs to know. She knows what he said, before, but now it’s different. Now she’s giving him access to an entirely different life. 

“No, I just...I’ll come with you.” He says, and surprises her. Bart turns to look at him, in shock, and his expression is completely earnest. “I’ll leave with you.”

“Promise?” She asks, like a stupid little girl. 

“Promise.” Ken agrees. “We can go tomorrow night, when everyone’s asleep.”

“Why not now?” She asks him, frowning.

“We need to pack and plan and split up the money.” Ken explains, and then turns his whole body to face her, before flinching, a bit, away from her, surprised at her proximity to him. “We need to be careful.” 

“Okay.” She says, and looks back out at the sea. “I trus’ ya.”

He’s silent for a long time, and Bart nearly jumps out of her skin when his hand covers hers. It’s as cold as the wind whipping at her hair and her shirt, but she likes it better than the wind. She likes _him_ better. Bart leans into his shoulder, not sure what to do in response to his sure physical touch. 

She's glad when he doesn't flinch away. “I know you do.” Ken murmurs.

~

_I couldn’t believe her-_

~

She's holding two coffees in her hands, one with milk and three sugars and without milk or sugar. Farah knows how Tina likes her coffee. Except that Tina hasn't come out of her room. Farah’s ready to move on, but Tina hasn't answered when she's knocked. Farah places the coffees on the floor and checks her phone. There's four missed calls and two voicemails, all from Tina.

Farah nearly kicks the coffees over in her mad rush to the car, immediately calling for backup. Of course Tina managed to find the kids in the middle of the night.

~ 

_-when she couldn’t explain it._

~ 

It’s the next morning, and Dirk wakes with a churning in his stomach, an anxiety provoking feeling that something is about to go wrong. The house is quiet, and the big truck that belongs to Amanda’s friends is missing from the driveway. The stairs creak under his bare feet, and there’s a cold draft somewhere, hitting him on the small of his back, where the back of his borrowed t-shirt rides up. 

Downstairs, in the living room, Todd and Amanda are talking in low whispers. Dirk doesn’t catch much, just, “They won’t turn us in?” And Amanda replying, “I promise, Todd. They’re good guys.”

And Dirk feels like his world has tipped on its axis, just like when Bart killed Priest.

“She knows?” Dirk demands, striding into the room.; the siblings jump in fright and look at each other. 

“Dirk, stay calm, it’s okay.” Amanda says, holding her hands up so as to represent she means him no harm. 

“Did you tell your friends?” He asks, and looks at Todd. Todd is wearing a similar expression to her. 

She pauses and bites her lip. “I told Martin.” She admits, and continues before dirk can make  fuss, again. “But he promised to keep it quiet!” 

“Oh, this is fantastic.” Dirk says, running a hand through his hair.

“It’s not like you were subtle.” Amanda grumbles. “I mean, you _killed someone_.” 

Before Dirk has the chance to correct her, someone else comes rushing from the stairs, and this someone is Bart. She’s holding the odd wooden statue from the top of the stairs, and Dirk watches is shock as she whacks Amanda over the head with it. Amanda topples into the wall and slumps to the floor. 

Todd makes a shocked, outraged kind of noise, in the back of his throat and moves towards Amanda’s body, but Bart points the statue at him. “Stay away fr’m ‘er.” She says in a dangerous tone. “Go upstairs an’ pack ya bags.”

“What the fuck are you doing?” Todd cries. “She wasn’t going to turn us in!” 

“Well, she sure will when she wakes up.”: Bart shrugs, eyes still narrowed. “Either way, we need ta get outta ‘ere. Now, go get ya bags.”

She ushers them away with the statue, and Dirk hurries up the stairs in a daze.

~

_I’m so tired._

~

Tina watched four men exit the house earlier in the day, and when she hears yelling, she figures it’s her cue. She opens the door and is immediately faced by Bart Curlish and Ken Adams, standing in the living room, over the unconscious body of Amanda Brotzman.

Ken’s eyes go wide, and Bart immediately shoves him behind her with one arm, the other hefting an odd wooden statue about the size of Bart’s forearm at Tina. “Who the fuck are ya?” Bart asks, in a low tone.

Tina holds her hands up. “My name is Tina Teventino.” She says, slowly, breathing deep. “I’ve been looking for you.”

Bart looks her up and down, and Tina takes the chance to glance at Amanda. Her chest is rising and falling, so that means she’s not dead. Tina’s still shocked that she’s there. “Are ya going to arrest us?” Bart asks, still pointing the wooden statue at her.

“I am a police officer, yes.” Tina says, and slowly pulls her badge from her pocket, showing it to them. “And I’m here to tell you that backup is on the way. If you guys turn yourselves in, to me, it won’t be so hard on you.”

Bart cocks her head, and Ken steps around her, shaking her hand off his arm. “What do you mean?” He inquires, curiously. His voice doesn’t shake. Tina kind of admires him for that.

“Ken, you’re eighteen.” She says, in an almost apologetic manner. “They’ll charge you as an adult. If you turn yourself in, it might count for a lesser sentence.”

“Why should we trust you?” He asks, taking another step forward. Bart drops the statue and walks to his side. She says his name softly, and Tina wonders how she missed whatever’s between them. 

“Maybe because I’m not pointing my gun at you?” Tina suggests, and Ken almost laughs.

“Will we be seperated?”

“What?” Tina says, almost without meaning to. She’s willing Farah to stay off for another minute or two. Feet thump on the roof, overhead. Todd and Svlad, no doubt.

“If we turn ourselves in,” Ken amends, and glances, quickly, at Bart, “will we be seperated?”

She tries to think of a soft way to put it. They’re obviously attached to each other, though Tina doesn’t know _how_ attached. “Yes.” Tina informs him, stiffly. “Bart will go to a different detention center than you.”

Bart watches Ken think on it, staring at the floor, and then watches as he fixes Tina with a steely glare. “Then, no.” He says, and Tina’s shocked until she sees his hand reaching for Bart’s. 

“Ken!” Bart says, shocked, but lets him take her hand.

“I’m not going to leave you.” He informs her, in that assured but nervous way that boys often do when they’re offering up their hearts. “We made a promise, remember?” 

Tina sees resolve settle in Bart and holds her hands up again. She’s going to lose them. “Wait, please-” She says. 

“No.” Bart says, and quick as a flash grabs Tina’s gun from it’s holster around her hips. Tina barely has time to say another word before Bart hits her over the head with the butt of it. She topples to the floor. 

~

_Just a few more questions, okay?_

~

There's not all that much to pack, in the first place, but Todd finds himself checking under the bed and down the side of the bedside table multiple times, just in case he forgot something.

There are hushed voices, downstairs, saying things that Todd can't quite hear, but sound like threats. He doesn't think he's ever heard Bart and Ken fight, even in the short time that he's know them both. He meets Dirk’s hesitant gaze when they meet in the hallway.

There's a muffled thumping noise and then the door slams. Dirk grabs Todd’s arm, “What if Bart’s killed Ken?”

Todd doesn't have time to unpack all the reasons he's both disgusted by Dirk and equally as scared as Dirk, in that moment, so he doesn't. He matches Dirk’s grip and races them down the stairs. Bart and Ken are nowhere to be seen. Instead, on the floor, is a blonde woman in plain clothes, holding a police badge.

“Oh my god.” Dirk says. “Bart killed a police officer.”

Todd drops his backpack and gets down next to the woman, pressing his index and middle finger to her pulse point. “She's not dead.” Todd says, but it's still not good. This woman is still a police officer, and she's still been attacked.

Dirk moves over to the window and narrows his eyes. “They're running down the beach.” He says, as Todd looks over at Amanda’s still form, on the floor. How much he wants to rush over and hold her, apologise for what he's done, apologise for how he's fucked up what she made of her life. There's no time for that, now, if Bart and Ken are trying to leave. “Bart’s got a gun. Where did she get a gun?”

Todd checks the woman’s belt and finds an empty holster. “Probably took it from her.”

As Dirk hurries over to see if Todd’s right, the door bursts open and more police officers, dressed it tactical uniform, hurry in, guns raised, yelling at Dirk and Todd to get away from the woman. Todd and Dirk back into the stairs, their hands raised in surrender. Todd should have known they'd be caught. With one police officer comes many.

It's over. They lost. Todd starts to cry. 

~

_Tell me where she is._

~

Farah enters last. Her team are already restraining Todd Brotzman and Svlad Cjelli by the stairs. There are two bodies on the floor. One of them is Amanda Brotzman. The other is Tina.

Farah immediately drops to her knees beside her, turning her onto her back. There’s a bit of blood trailing down her face from where she was struck. “Oh, fuck, Tina.” She mutters, pushing loose hair out of her eyes. Todd Brotzman struggles as they handcuff him. “I need a medic!”

“Please, officer, my sister.” Todd says to the man restraining him. The officer lets him drop onto the floor beside her, and Todd manages to prop her head up in his lap. He’s crying.

Someone takes Tina from Farah’s arms, and Farah stalks over to Svlad Cjelli, putting up no fight as he’s handcuffed. “Where are the other two?” She asks him, well aware of how terrifying this will be for him. 

“They’re down on the beach.” He answers, numbly, eyes blank. Farah nods at him, feeling a bit sympathetic for him, before barking out an order and sprinting out the front door. 

There they are, on the horizon, running for the cliffs. Farah clicks the safety off her gun, and runs after them, praying that she won’t need to use it.

~ 

_Please stay calm._

~

He sees Bart glance over her shoulder and sees her face fall. Obviously they're not running fast enough. She grabs his arm and pulls him to a stop, just before the sand stretches flat and damp before them, where the tide pulled back.  
  
She's panting hard, her chest rising and falling, holding tight to his wrists. "It started with you an' I-"  
  
"You and me." Ken can't help but correct. She laughs, wetly, and he sees tears begin to gather in her eyes. She's already given up.  
  
"Whatever." Bart rasps, with a sad smile. "I guess I shoulda known it would end like this."  
  
"End like-" He frowns; she's not making sense. Yeah, they'll go to prison, but it's not the end. "Bart what are you talking about?"

“Tell ‘em I kidnapped ya. This was all me, got it? It was all me.”

“Kidnapped me? Bart, I won't lie, it doesn't have to end like this.”

"I've had a lotta fun." Bart says, and sniffs, her left hand releasing his wrist. "'m sorry."  
  
"Sorry-?" But he doesn't get to finish, because she takes the gun from his hand and strikes him on the head with the butt of it.  
  
Ken falls, watching her begin to run-  
  
_"Are you scared o' me, Ken?" She asks, and she looks so grim. He doesn’t know how to answer. He knows the truth, but the truth is that he doesn’t want to hurt her. "Ken?" Bart repeats, and Ken doesn't look at her. He can't look at her._ _  
_ _  
_ _He’s seen better of her since she did what she did, he’s known better. "Yeah," he says, and he hates it. It was the person she was when she invited back to the house that scared him, not the girl who stepped into his shower, not the girl who ate cereal on the floor while watching Spongebob, not the girl who humoured him in the op shop._ _  
_ _  
_ _"Oh." The way her voice falters at this makes him hate it even more._ _  
_ _  
_ _"Did you think I wasn't?" Ken asks her. He still can't look. He doesn't want to see the broken look that is sure to be on her face. The same look she had on her face right after he set her down on the couch, back at the house where it all started._ _  
_ _  
_ _"No." She says, and the tone is hard, accusatory. She softens. "I jus' hoped - it was stupid, I knew ya would be, but I didn' want you ta be."_ _  
_ _  
_ _“I'm sorry." Finally, he turns, and she doesn't look quite as broken as he thought she would. "I think if it hadn't happened it would be a different story."_ _  
_ _  
_ _There's a crease between her brows, but it isn't the usual unhappy-confused crease. Ken wants so badly to reach out and take her hand. He wants her to understand that while he’s scared of what she’s capable of, he still knows who she is. And who she’s not. "Thanks fo' bein' honest, anyhow." Bart rasps, and gets up, heading for the door._ _  
_ _  
_ _"It's okay." Ken replies, but, by the time he says it, she's gone._ _  
_  
"Bart!" He screams, ignoring the pain in his head from her blow and getting to his knees, rocks digging into his legs. "What are you doing!"  
  
He should have known she wouldn't let him be blamed.  
  
Bart doesn't answer, of course, just keeps running.  
  
Ken's seized from behind, by a woman with dark skin and tears in her eyes. "Ken, please stop struggling." She says, quietly. He just struggles more.  
  
He can't let Bart do this.  
  
"Bart, please! BART!" Someone behind him cocks a gun and the blood in his veins freezes. Bart keeps running. The woman holding him back murmurs something to the person with the gun. 

~

_I’m so alone._

~

Tina wakes with a pounding headache and the room swirling around her. Someone with a tiny flashlight is leaning over, her, pointing the light right in her eye. 

“Please, Detective Teventino, stay still, you might have a concussion.” The person leaning over her says. There’s something trickling down the side of her face, and once she smears a finger through it and brings it up to eye level, she finds it’s blood. Figures.

“Where’s Farah?” She mumbles out, pushing herself up into sitting position.

The person leaning over her, a team medic, frantically pushes at her shoulders. “Detective Black is outside,” she responds, sounding alarmed, “but really, I must insist you stay on the floor-”

Tina catches sight of Todd Brotzman, Svlad Cjelli, and Amanda Brotzman restrained on the couch. They all stare at her, apart from Amanda, who’s unconscious. “Where are the other two?” Tina asks no one in particular, pushing the medic away.

Todd jerks his chin in the direction of the window, stroking hair out of his sisters face with one hand and holding Svlad’s with the other one. They’re both crying, but Svlad’s curled into Todd’s shoulder, as if maybe that will shield him from prying eyes.

Tina stumbles to her feet and trips her way out the front door. There’s a clear view of the beach from the porch, and Tina can see Farah holding a restrained Ken Adams on the ground. And further out, she can see Bart Curlish, sprinting for her life across the flattened, damp sand. Beside Farah is a man with a gun. Tina watches helplessly as Farah gives an order, and the man raises the gun.

~

_I just want it to be over._

~

Bart is running. There is no way she can get away. She's risked everything, she's _ruined_ everything. They're not going to have a choice.  
  
She is not going to get away. Her breath wheezes out of her in a way that is too uncomfortable, in a way that makes her body beg for rest. It feels like sandpaper, and sounds like nails on a chalkboard.  
  
She can hear Ken screaming behind her, begging her to come back, pleading with her. She can't stop running, even if she knows she'll never make it out of here alive.  
  
She will not get away. It will have all been for nothing.  
  
Bart just can't run fast enough-  
  
_BAM_  
  
The sound of it echoes around her. It catches her in the small of her back. It burns, it makes her stutter as she runs, it makes her scream. But Bart doesn't stop, merely slows. Ken depends on this. Depends on _her_ to make this convincing. That's the story he’ll tell.

_BAM_

This one hits her shoulder, making her teeter off balance and clutch it blindly. Running physically hurts, but now she can barely move her right hand. Bart’s legs are going stiff, her steps slowing even further.

It's the story he’ll _have_ to tell. That she kidnapped him, that she was going to kill him, too. That he was not to blame, had _never_ been to blame. 

_BAM_

It rips through her lung, smashing ribs on its way through, and Bart sucks in a last painful breath before her foot drags too deeply in the sand.

She trips. She falls. The sky is grey.

~

“Is it over, yet, Detective Black?”

“Almost, Svlad. Only two more questions and then we’re done.”

  
**  
** **  
** **fin.**

**Author's Note:**

> Once again, a big thanks to my artist and my beta. If you liked this, please leave me a comment about that, and also a kudos, if you like. You can find me on Tumblr @nose-coffee and you can see all the shit I post there. Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed (?) it.


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